


Aftercare

by ktula



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sex Work, Anal Sex, Canon Universe, Chronic Pain, Coming Untouched, Grand Marshal Armitage Hux, Kylo Amidala aesthetics, M/M, Paperwork, Pillow Prince Kylo Ren, Prescription Drug Use, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-19 12:03:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22010680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktula/pseuds/ktula
Summary: Supreme Leader Ren has resurrected paperwork from the Empire archives in order to document his hiring of sex workers. These encounters must be observed for security purposes.Grand Marshal Hux is irritable about it--but, then, he's irritable about most things these days.Ren getting fucked by a series of male sex workers is no different.At least, it shouldn't be.---This fic was drafted prior to The Rise of Skywalker, and the movie didn't impact the fic in any way.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren, Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 136
Kudos: 288





	1. Requisition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Splintered_Star](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Splintered_Star/gifts).



> This fic came from a prompt that splintered_star thought up, which we then discussed afterwards. Also, they shared their notes with me. Then I got started with the drafting, and the thing grew legs, as my fics have a tendency to do.
> 
> This is for you, Star--thank you for being an amazing friend, for encouraging me and supporting me, and for sharing such wonderful stories with me. Here's to a great 2020!
> 
> Content warnings are at the end.

Hux can feel the piece of flimsi flexing under his glove as he storms into Ren’s chambers. “What,” he spits, “the _pfassk_ is this— _thing_ —you filed?”

Ren looks up at him blandly, blinking those too-soft eyes back at him. “It’s a requisition, Grand Marshal,” he says.

“For a _sex worker_.”

Ren just watches him.

(Hux hates it. Hates how even under the new Supreme Leader’s eyes, he still feels like a bug. He’d known Snoke had despised him, and it didn’t matter, because Hux got results and the results were the important part—but fuck if it doesn’t hurt a bit coming from Ren, who’d come to the First Order as a blood-soaked mess who hadn’t even wiped the viscera off his face until Hux had given him a cloth.)

Hux tries again. “This form isn’t part of the official First Order—”

“It is now,” Ren interrupts. He gestures vaguely with his hand, and the flimsi clenched in Hux’s fist _glows_ at the bottom, the footnote highlighted. “You’ll note the original Empire documentation it was adapted from has been cited at the bottom, as is proper First Order procedure.”

“This isn’t—”

“It is,” Ren insists. “Palpatine used these documents. So did Vader. The forms are all in the Empire archives.” He sets his jaw, scar shifting on his cheek. “Or weren’t you aware of that?”

Hux glares at him, and then opens his gloved hand, lets the flimsi fall. Turns sharply before it hits the ground, storms right back out of Ren’s chambers.

* * *

It doesn’t matter, of course. It’s not like Hux needed to sign off on the karking thing. It had passed his desk as a courtesy, same as every other piece of paperwork. Hux isn’t required to do anything about it, he just likes to know what the kriff is going on. Something about this stings, though. It’s…insulting, to be subjected to Ren’s personal paperwork.

Certainly, Hux had gotten the title he wanted, but Ren is irritatingly competent as Supreme Leader. Hux isn’t a fool—he’d realized early on that his review wasn’t necessary, but saying so would have been a stamp of approval on Ren’s leadership that he is unwilling to give, and so Hux continues to read over documentation that doesn’t require his input, his signature, or his corrections. Documentation that is a waste of Hux’s time, but he’s trapped himself in this, and there’s no way out now.

(Ren was right, Hux learns, about the archives. He hadn’t known—there were entire sections of the archives that Brendol had deemed unimportant, and they’d been shuffled into a tertiary backup—but the moment Hux pecks the form number into the search index, the system finds not only the template Ren had adapted, but every single instance of the paperwork that had been filed under the Empire. It wasn’t just Palpatine and Vader, either. There are copies of the form labelled with _Krennic, O_ ; with _Tarkin, W_ ; _Sloane, R_ ; and _Hux, B_.

(He closes the archives without pulling up any of the files, cold sweat prickling on his back.

(It doesn’t matter.

(It doesn’t matter at all.)

* * *

“I’ve taken your objections about the requisition into consideration,” Ren says later that week.

It’s a rare occurrence, but they’re in Hux’s chambers this time, with Ren lounged out on Hux’s couch like he belongs there. His knees are splayed wide and his gloves off, as he idly swirls the liquid in his glass with the Force while Hux resists the temptation to lean back against his desk. It’s 0400 hours, and his back is killing him, palms sweating in his gloves, but this is a business meeting, and Hux will give Ren _nothing_.

“I didn’t make any objections,” Hux says. There it goes again—his shoulder twitches under his greatcoat, a symptom of the stress he’s been under. It’s the only reason he still has his greatcoat on even though they’re in his chambers, and it’s long past the time when he should have taken the karking thing off. “Formal or otherwise.”

Ren grins coldly at him, idly gestures at his own temples. “You’ve been thinking.”

What Hux has been thinking is none of Ren’s business, and never has been. “By all means, advise me of my…what I’ve been thinking.”

(He’d almost said something about _secret desires_ , but he doesn’t want to imply to Ren that he has any. He shouldn’t. This is the career he’s wanted since he was a child, the title that Snoke wouldn’t give him, the prestige and power in an organization he has believed in since the very first time Rae Sloane put her hand on his shoulder and he knew what true power was.)

“No need,” Ren says dismissively. The whiskey Hux had grudgingly poured for him spirals up out of the glass to form a replica of Starkiller, and then just as quickly dissolves back into a liquid, continues swirling up and around the sides of the glass as though gravity is not applicable within the confines of its walls. “You were right.”

Hux exhales, relaxes infinitesimally under the greatcoat before another twinge up his spine causes him to straighten again. “I’ll have a slicer wipe the—”

“It is a security risk,” Ren continues. He makes a gesture as though he’s sliding something through the air toward Hux, and on cue, Hux feels his datapad vibrate in the pocket of his greatcoat. “I’ve filed a request for an additional security detail—a squad of special ops to be stationed immediately outside the door, and one individual to watch my encounter on the security cameras. I’d thought to use a droid, but have included a non-disclosure agreement if it’s assessed to be better with a human observer.” He shrugs one massive shoulder. “Ethics didn’t seem to care much either way.” An odd expression crosses his face, twisting his scar for a moment as he frowns. “I think they thought me paranoid, actually. We’ve been under contract with the same sex worker agency since the beginning, and the number of incidents is so infinitesimally small as to be statistically insignificant.”

Hux stares at him. “You’re going through with it.”

“Of course,” Ren says. “Why wouldn’t I?” He tilts his head, stares at Hux a moment before smiling.

(It doesn’t reach his eyes. It hasn’t in years. Not since…before Starkiller, at least. There was a moment, after Crait—Ren had come to him at 0500, a sleepless, red-eyed mess, babbling about apologies and confusion in his mind, and spaces where Snoke used to be. Hux had slapped him across the face, told him to pull himself together. The next day, Ren had himself again, and they hadn’t needed to discuss anything that happened, because there was nothing _to_ discuss. There was only the revelation that Ren was just as good a fit in the First Order as he’d always claimed he was, back when he was too soft and went red in the face when he was scolded, back when he’d looked to Hux for guidance. Back when he could have passed for any other Outer Rim trash that Hux might have liked to fuck on his off-hours, outside of the organization where nobody would have needed to know about it, and there wouldn’t have been any paperwork.)

“Why not indeed,” Hux says tightly. His back is aching, and it’s a monumental effort not to glance at the bedside table, at the myocaine he keeps there so he’s got a chance in hell of sleeping. The sooner the Supreme Leader leaves, the sooner Hux can shower and lie down, stare at the ceiling until the meds put him under. Maybe he’ll take them before the shower, put himself to bed in a haze. Anything to get the pain lancing up his back to just settle, just for a little bit, because between his spine and his pending migraine, he feels like some kind of a mannequin, standing here waiting for orders from—

“I’ll take my leave,” Ren says abruptly, standing in a swoosh of black robes, and calling his gloves back to his extended hand. “I’ve scheduled the requisition—”

 _The sex worker_ , Hux thinks bitterly.

“—for two days from now. I’ll block the time period off on my calendar, but as always, I’m otherwise available should anything come to your attention that would benefit from mine.”

Hux nods. He should step to the side, put his hands behind his back, every inch the proper Grand Marshal, but his back is a half-second away from locking up, and so he stays where he is, resting just barely against his own desk and bracing himself that way, inhales and holds it so that he doesn’t have to smell Ren as he passes. There’s no reason for Ren to pause as he passes Hux. There’s no reason for Ren’s fingers to press against the back of Hux’s greatcoat, but Hux keeps staring forward, and after a moment, the pressure lessens and he hears the beep of his door as it slides open at Ren’s command.

He waits until the door closes before he moves, begins his end-of-day routine. He is half-asleep before he realizes that he didn’t take anything before bed—and he doesn’t feel like he needs to, either.

It’s the strangest thing.

* * *

He glances over Ren’s requisition the following day as he waits for his tea to steep. It’s for the best that he never eats anything in the mornings, because his stomach twists as he reads through a list of Ren’s sexual preferences—or lack thereof.

From what he can tell, all Ren is looking for is a man willing to top him. There is no age range specified, no physical appearance requirements. No kinks listed. The section for additional information contains only a note that the session will be observed for security reasons, and a link to an attached non-disclosure agreement. It would look desperate if it weren’t for the fact that Ren apparently has the time and inclination to fill out a form for this instead of just—finding a trooper, getting fucked, and filing the paperwork afterwards, so that the liaison exists forever in the computer systems of the First Order. Or, failing that, doing whatever it is that other personnel normally do. Shore leave, likely. It’s what Hux used to do.

But this form—it’s a vulnerability that Ren apparently doesn’t care about exposing to Hux, and it makes Hux wonder about how Ren would look, during. Whether he would prefer to lie on his back, or if he’d be on all fours instead, exposed and vulnerable as some anonymous sex worker fucks him and he thrusts back into it.

It’s a visual that Hux doesn’t need.

(His tea ends up oversteeped, bitter as the bile at the back of his throat.)

* * *

Hux sits on the request for an observer for twenty-four hours, and then sends it back into the pool for someone else to pick up.

(If Ren thought it needed to be him, Ren would have asked.)

His backache has returned, and he skips his evening shower in favour of meds and an early bedtime. He’s just about to fall asleep when he realizes that Ren’s appointment should be occurring now—and then it’s like the drugs leave his system completely, and he lies in bed awake, staring at his ceiling, his back a dull ache and his stomach twisting.

* * *

Hux shows up at their morning meeting exactly on time, even though he fully expects Ren to skip it. The meeting is in Ren’s chambers, and Hux halfway expects them to reek of sex—but there’s nothing there except recirculated air, and the scent of tarine tea, which is the first thing that day which has managed to cut through Hux’s headache. He blinks, stands in the entrance trying to figure out—

“Hux,” Ren says, sweeping into the front room from the bedchambers beyond.

He doesn’t smell like sex either, doesn’t even have the nerve to have damp hair—from all Hux can tell, Ren has been up for hours, dressed and blowdried and otherwise perfectly groomed, with absolutely no indication that he’d spent last night getting fucked in a number of ways Hux cannot even begin to imagine.

“Supreme Leader.” Hux’s voice is gritty, and he flinches as it scrapes out of his throat. He should have had tea in his own chambers to straighten his voice out, but he hadn’t, and now he’s the one who sounds as though he’d spent the entire evening with a cock down his throat, whereas Ren sounds just as high-born as he usually does.

(Ren is wearing some kind of a formal robe with a deep vee in the neckline this morning, exposing more of his neck and his collarbones than what Hux is used to seeing. His skin is unblemished but for the moles scattered across his body like constellations.)

Ren gestures vaguely. The holoprojector lights up, navigating itself through a series of commands as though it’s responding to Ren’s thoughts, which it probably is. “Tea?”

“Please,” Hux murmurs. Winces. He hates that _please_ is the word that came out of his mouth. Hates that he’s taking off his gloves and tucking them in his pocket even though he doesn’t need to, even though he can work his datapad with the gloves on.

Hates that the tea is steeped perfectly, tastes wonderful.

(Hates that the brush of Ren’s bare fingers against Hux’s hand when he handed him the glass had greater curative powers than the tea.)

* * *

The next requisition is in his inbox at the end of the day. Hux glances at it, and then down at the signature to confirm it’s one of Ren’s. Then he pushes it aside, deals with everything else on his desk. Tucks the flimsi into his greatcoat as he leaves his office for the day, heads back to his chambers. Pours himself a glass of whiskey, changes out of his uniform into his silk robe. Sits down on the couch, and spends half an hour petting his cat, ignoring the piece of flimsi until the whiskey has warmed his stomach, and Millicent has fallen asleep next to him.

It’s a lot of buildup for nothing. The requisition is exactly the same as the last one, just on a shorter time frame—a generic request for a male sex worker to top the Supreme Leader the following evening. No physical requirements selected. No kinks or fetishes checked off. The observer request form is still required, so apparently Ren hasn’t given up on _that_ particular piece of pageantry, and the non-disclosure agreement for the observer is attached, just the same as the last one.

Hux scowls, finishes his drink, and leaves the flimsi on the couch when he goes to bed.

He’ll put the observer requisition into the pool tomorrow morning.

* * *

Hux spends the next day on the bridge surreptitiously checking his datapad, waiting for the observer task to be picked up—which it is, almost immediately.

Then he spends the rest of the day watching all his crew members on the bridge, trying to determine if one of them is the one who has picked up the Supreme Leader’s request. He has a good eye for people, and keen observation skills, and he can’t see anything different among any of the people working on the bridge. No signs of anticipation, nobody on edge. Hux doesn’t even sense any changes when Ren himself sweeps onto the bridge later, spends an hour just _hovering_ there, splitting his time between watching everyone down in the pit, and watching the TIE formations outside the observer deck.

(He doesn’t stop to talk to Hux, only glances bare-faced in his direction, and then turns and swoops out back to—wherever he needs to go prior to his appointment. To do whatever kind of preparation Ren usually does for these sorts of things.)

Hux stays on the bridge past the point where his shift has ended. No one leaves the bridge early on assignment, and no one has called off for the bridge shift that follows.

He has a screaming migraine when he goes to bed that night, bad enough that he lets Millicent up on the bed even though she knows she’s to sleep in her own bed rather than his.

* * *

Ren is just the same at their morning meeting. He’s brewed Hux’s tea in advance, but Hux keeps his gloves on this time, so Ren’s bare fingers brush the leather, and Hux’s headache does not diminish, not even after his third cup.

There’s no evidence that any of this is _changing_ Ren, or helping him, or improving him. By all accounts, it’s a useless expense.

“Paperwork from last night,” Ren murmurs, handing over a stack of flimsi.

“Did the droids not pick this up at midnight?”

“Yes,” Ren says. “This is the paperwork I finished afterwards. I’m in meetings much of the morning, I didn’t want to delay your review.”

“Ah,” Hux says, the words sticking in his throat. He closes his gloved hand over the flimsi. It’s too thick a stack for him to be able to slide into the pocket of his greatcoat, and he’s stuck with holding it. “Thank you.”

Ren’s mouth twitches, but there’s nothing more that comes out. After a moment of silence, Hux turns on his heel and leaves Ren’s chambers.

* * *

True to his word, Ren’s calendar is full. Hux doesn’t see him for the rest of the day.

The requisition tucked into the midst of the paperwork that Ren completed last night—after his appointment, apparently—is exactly the same as the previous requisitions.

Hux scowls at it.

It’s not working. There’s absolutely no way it’s working, because if it was working, Ren wouldn’t be requisitioning sex workers so often. He wouldn’t be filling out the same bland requisition forms, he would have some sense of—his own _preferences_ , what he wants, what he needs, what gets him off.

The form in front of Hux, just like all the other forms, is the requisition form of an absolute virgin, who has no fucking idea what he’s after, or what would satisfy him.

Hux frowns, files the requisition, and stares at the observer request for a long time before sending it into the pool.

* * *

Five minutes later, he puts down his cup of tea mid-sip, opens up the work pool, and assigns the observer request to himself.

* * *

“Thank you, Supreme Leader,” Hux says. He nods sharply, even though it sends a jolt of pain down his spine, and leans forward to de-activate the holocall. “Well?” he asks, turning. “At ease, everyone—and back to work.” He waits another moment until the bridge settles down into its regular routine, and then slowly walks to the railing, where at least he can lean on it, take some of the pressure from his back that way.

Irritatingly, as soon as he settles into a position that’s marginally less painful, his datapad goes off.

It’s a message from Ren, which is odd, because as much as Hux hates to admit it, it’s not like Ren to forget something—and it’s not like him not to call back immediately if he had.

Hux reads the message, squints, and reads it again.

_Supreme Leader Ren: Are you alright?_

_Grand Marshal Hux: Excuse me?_

He watches the datapad, the little indicator that Ren is typing flashing for a few moments before the next message surfaces.

 _Supreme Leader Ren: It_ _’s not perceptible to anyone else, but I thought you looked unwell on our call just now. I didn’t want to bring attention to it. But I’m concerned._

Hux weighs his options. Under Snoke, he would have denied it, just the same as he denied it under Rae Sloane, and before that, under Brendol.

But none of them had the Force.

(Well, Snoke did, but Hux never saw any evidence of him using it for something as petty as checking on someone’s health the way he knows Ren does. If there’s an opportunity for Ren to be intrusive about it, he’ll take that opportunity, every single time, and lying about it now is guaranteed to get those ice-cold fingers right down the inside of Hux’s skull at their next in-person meeting—which, irritatingly, is scheduled for tomorrow morning, because stars forbid Ren goes one karking day without rubbing it in that now that he _has_ a Grand Marshal, he actually doesn’t _need_ one.)

_Supreme Leader Ren: You have sick leave, Grand Marshal. I won’t be personally offended if you take it._

Hux takes a deep breath, prepares a scathing retort—but his breath catches in his chest, something twinges in his spine, and he grips the railing rather harder than he’d intended to as his vision goes grey momentarily. When his vision clears, he looks down at his datapad.

_Supreme Leader Ren: Let me know if you want me to reschedule tomorrow morning’s meeting, Grand Marshal. I’ll speak to you then._

So he’s dismissed, then. He’s dismissed, and he cannot even find the energy to object.

He opts not to reply, but accesses his profile to mark himself as unavailable for the remainder of his shift, knowing perfectly well that the status update will immediately alert Ren. There’s no need to say anything other than that.

(He certainly won’t say thank you, because Ren’s intrusion was neither needed nor wanted.)

It takes only a moment to hand the bridge over, and walk back to his chambers, careful of his posture and his back. When he gets into the safety of his rooms, he allows himself to set his greatcoat down on his desk, rather than hang it up, and then go immediately to his bed, lie down without even taking his boots off.

He doses himself with myocaine, closes his eyes, and focuses on breathing.

* * *

A few hours later, he’s feeling well enough to pick up his datapad again, sort through any messages he missed. He’s feeling well enough that he could go back to the bridge—certainly, it would look better for him if he did—but there’s no benefit to it, really, because Ren is due back before the end of his shift, and Hux isn’t particularly interested in having an in-person altercation with Ren in front of everyone else, particularly when he still feels if he moves wrong, it’s likely to show on his face, and then Ren would never let him live it down.

There’s still a section of blocked-off time on his calendar.

Hux frowns at it. His meetings should have been automatically rescheduled when his status changed, and he taps the meeting in order to manually—

—it’s the observer assignment. A special assignment, so of course it wouldn’t have been modified by his status change, of course it wouldn’t have been rescheduled, and he’ll have to do that manually, or send in a droid—

—and he realizes that he has no intention of doing any such thing.

Sighing, he reaches over to his endtable, thumbs through his collection of meds, and pulls out three stims. One to hasten the speed of the muscle relaxant that he’s already taken, another to act as a slow-release painkiller, and a third, a low-grade stimulant that won’t interact poorly with the slow-release. He rolls the sleeve of his tunic up and injects the first into his system, cringing as the chill from the fluid goes through his veins and the pain from his spine starts to come back.

He checks the chronometer.

If he forces himself out of bed now, runs a bath, he can lay in hot water while the original painkiller works its way out of his system, and then stay there until it’s time to take the slow-release. The stimulant he’ll tuck into his pocket, take it with him in case he needs it to stay awake during the observer shift.

Dealing with Ren’s paranoia seems like the furthest thing from important right now—but Hux is just high enough to admit to a certain level of professional curiosity about just how bad this is for Ren that he keeps filling out the same ridiculous form, and getting unsatisfying results.

 _Play stupid games, win stupid prizes_ , Hux thinks as he carefully sits up, and starts the slow process of moving across his room into the refresher.

* * *

The water is so warm his skin goes red instantly. The pain of adjusting to it blanks out the pain in his spine for a moment, and it’s perfect. He lies there, completely naked, legs fully extended, the jets pulsing hard at his back, and counts his breaths while he waits for—

—ah, there, the back pain has returned.

Hux checks the chrono, and nudges the floating projector for his datapad, gesturing it into life as it floats on the surface of his bath, projecting its image up above the water. He has enough time to go through his inbox, but knows he shouldn’t, and he’s just contemplating beginning to sort through his holograms of Millicent to select the best ones when there’s a small flashing alert at the corner of his screen.

He glances up, grimaces.

_Special assignment commencing in one hour…_

As if he would forget.

He thumbs the alert irritably, meaning to dismiss it entirely, but his finger twitches as it passes over the image. This technology was never meant for baths quite as hot as this, and instead of being dismissed, the alert expands to fill the screen, providing information on what’s required of him (observation of an encounter between Supreme Leader Ren and an external contractor denoted by a generic string of letters and numbers), where he is required to be (security room A3057, 1950 hours, identification required), and, horrifyingly, a link to the security feeds from previous encounters.

This time, Hux’s finger doesn’t slip. He deliberately opens the link, because there’s no way he’s going into this assignment cold. If there’s some kind of Republican… _deviancy_ to occur tonight, Hux would really rather know about it in advance.

As the video loads, Hux settles back into his bath, gets his cup of tarine tea.

It’ll be good blackmail material to have this on Ren, he thinks.

After all, it’s what Ren would do to him.

* * *

There is no Republican deviancy on the security footage.

There isn’t even any First Order deviancy.

If it weren’t for the fact that the Supreme Leader of the First Order was on all fours on a narrow bed while a naked man ploughed into him from behind, Hux wouldn’t have thought anything untoward was happening in the video.

Ren is still _dressed,_ for pfassk’s sake. He’s wearing loose black robes that cover him from neck to wrist to ankle, the excess fabric gathered up at the small of his back to allow the sex worker access. There’s enough excess fabric that it pools around his legs, covering them completely. Hux has a full view of Ren from the side, but the question of whether or not Ren is even aroused is entirely unanswerable, because his genitals are hidden by the drape of his robe, his face is hidden by the loose waves of his hair, and both his hands are relaxed on the bed as he supports himself.

The volume on the video is turned as loud as it can be, and the only noise in the room is breathing—and neither the sex worker nor Ren are out of breath. The sex worker is very fit—his abs are visible, pert ass tightening as he thrusts into Ren. Nice biceps, strong thighs. Ren—well, Hux wouldn’t be surprised if Ren were meditating, because he looks completely disengaged.

 _No wonder he keeps rebooking_ , Hux thinks sourly. It’s a wonder he’s even able to—

—on the security footage, Ren’s breath catches, and his body goes tense, hands clenching into fists.

Hux glances at the timestamp. It’s been exactly thirty minutes of fucking, and Ren appears to have come untouched.

The sex worker rubs his thumb across Ren’s back in a motion so small it’s nearly imperceptible, and then starts to pull away, before Ren brings his hand back, catches the sex worker’s wrist.

“Go ahead,” Ren says, voice graveled and low. “Finish what you started.”

The sex worker says something in a language Hux doesn’t recognize, and Ren moves his hand, puts it back down on the bed again. Hux speeds up the recording, watches the sex worker finish fucking Ren at double-speed, watches him pull out and remove the filled condom and dispose of it. Watches his lips move as he speaks with Ren afterwards. Slows the footage down to normal speed to watch Ren stand up from the bed, robes immediately falling into place around him. Pauses the video when Ren brings up his hand to brush his hair back from his face.

Ren’s face is the face of someone who has just concluded a stressful meeting.

It’s not the face of someone who has been satisfactorily fucked.

Hux sighs, cues up the next video. Skims his way through that, taking a few extra moments to admire the sex worker—this one is bigger, with light brown hair that stands up around his head in a stylized cut that the First Order definitely wouldn’t allow, the kind of hair that Hux might like to take hold of and tug on if his partner were amenable to it. Less visible musculature than the previous sex worker, but much more bulk, making for a significantly better view. Like the last recording, Ren is completely covered up, completely disengaged, and when the sex worker shifts his hand around in order to touch Ren, Ren says something sharply in another language, and the sex worker puts his hand right back where it was on Ren’s hip.

This time, Hux catches the black glint of the cock ring the sex worker is wearing, waits for that tell-tale shudder through Ren’s back, and then watches the sex worker unhook the ring, finish himself off immediately afterward while Ren waits there passively, refusing to get up from the bed until the sex worker has left, and then getting up so quickly in a flurry of robes that it’s impossible to see anything other than the fact that, again, Ren looks completely dissatisfied.

Well, if that’s what Hux is going to be watching tonight, it’s not worth a moment of his time worrying about it. He’s seen supply closet liaisons more graphic than this. He carefully picks up the floating projector and sets it off to the side, sinks back into the bath.

Ten more minutes.

* * *

The observation room is heavily guarded by red-armoured stormtroopers standing outside the room, weapons at the ready. (Sith troopers, his ass—Hux knows damn well they’re his soldiers, trained from birth, just re-suited in armour that Ren finds more aesthetically pleasing.)

“He in there?” Hux asks crisply.

The trooper closest to him hesitates a moment before answers. “He uses the other entrance.”

Meaning that they have no idea whether he’s there or not. Lovely.

Hux makes a point of drawing his datapad from his pocket, and taking a note. “And the external contractor?”

“Currently being escorted from bay six,” responds one of the troopers from the door. “Would you like me to patch the feed into the observation room, Grand Marshal?”

Hux considers it briefly, discards the idea. “Unnecessary. I assume I’ll be able to see on the cameras when the Supreme Leader arrives?”

“The cameras cover seventy-five percent of the room,” the same trooper says. “I don’t believe they’re focused on the door, but I can re-focus them if you like.”

“No need,” Hux says. He notes the trooper’s identification number, and then nods. “As you were.”

The troopers nod, shift away, and Hux advances to the door of the observation room, which opens immediately to his command cylinder. Hux steps inside, lets the door slide shut behind him, and then takes a look at what he’s going to be contending with for the next…well, if the historical footage is any indication, the next forty five minutes of his life, give or take any negotiations still to happen.

The trooper wasn’t incorrect—the camera doesn’t cover the door. The reciprocal glass, however, absolutely does, and Hux is a little shocked to realize that he has floor-to-ceiling visibility of the entire room. He glances at the control panel, notes the camera and the recording software, the large red button for security, an intercom. Everything is a typical First Order setup, except for the glass.

Hux blinks at the setup, and then looks at the camera. Leans over the console, and navigates through the system to confirm there’s nothing in the other room indicating the reciprocal glass is there. Hux is completely invisible, but he’s uncomfortable with the configuration of the room anyway, especially considering he wasn’t aware that this tech was being used at all. He sets his jaw, checks the chrono. Two minutes until the meeting starts, which means thirty-two minutes until the bulk of it is over.

Hux glances at the chair, opts not to sit. (Doesn’t think about what any of the prior observers might have done or not done in this room—it’ll be easier on his back if he stands, so he stands.) Looks through the glass just in time to see Ren coming in from the side entrance.

He’s dressed as he has been in all the previous footage—long black robe, covered from neck to wrists to ankles, soft black shoes on his feet. His hair hangs loose around his face, which is set in a sullen pout as he glances over the room.

(The bed is a single bed, and Hux cannot quite get over that part, because it’s just so—stark, for absolutely no reason. As though Ren is going out of his way to ensure he’s not enjoying himself.)

Hux glances over at the security monitors, sees the troopers outside shifting over to accommodate the external contractor. He’s dressed in a robe as well, with the hood pulled up to ensure anonymity, and Hux respects that. At least the agency understands the value of discretion. He leans over, adjusts the volume so that he can listen to the negotiations—only there aren’t any, just Ren reaching into his robe, producing a datapad, and handing it to the contractor.

The contractor looks at the datapad, looks at Ren, and then applies his thumb to the bottom of the pad before handing it back. Ren makes that same absent-minded gesture he always makes, and there’s a short ping coming from the screen at the desk. Hux glances over, without stepping out of parade rest.

(His back twinges.)

Even from a distance, he can see that it’s the exact same nearly-empty requisition that Ren always fills out. Presumably the NDA, consent to be recorded, and other associated documents are attached, and Hux very nearly doesn’t check them—but he’s signed up to observe, and with an irritated sigh, he walks back to the screen, and makes a cursory attempt to at least scroll through everything.

“Pardon?” the sex worker says in the other room.

“…nothing,” Ren responds, his voice odd and lilting. “Continue.”

The bed creaks. Hux finishes scrolling through the document, presses his own thumb to the datapad to confirm he’s read it, and turns back to see that Ren is already in position on the bed, just the same as he always is—all fours, his weight on his knees and his forearms, hands loose, hair hanging over his face.

Hux checks the chrono. Five minutes after the hour. Thirty minutes remaining, plus whatever time they take to clean up in the end. Hux taps the console screen to push the documentation over onto the datapad sitting on the desk, picks it up, and carefully paces the room while he reads the entire thing in detail, just to make sure nothing is missed.

* * *

He’s halfway through the NDA when there’s a _moan_ from the other room. Hux glances up cursorily, notes the parted lips on the sex worker’s mouth, and is just about to look back at his datapad when he glances, accidentally, at Ren.

Ren’s head is up, hair pushed back from his face, mouth open as he moans again.

Hux blinks.

This is…not usual.

And it gets even less usual when Ren actually pushes up onto his palms as the sex worker fucks into him from behind, tilting his ass back into the blond’s hips.

“Alright?” the blond asks. His accent is as crisp as Hux’s own, indicating a reasonable education, at least, before switching careers to—

“Yes,” Ren sighs. He’s up on his knees now. The contractor leans back in response and braces himself on the mattress, switching the movements of his hips to short, upward jabs. Ren bites his lower lip. “Can we—switch positions?”

“Of course,” the sex worker says. He puts one hand on Ren’s hip, slowly pulls out. The condom is lube-wet and slick-looking in the light. “How do you want it?”

Ren bites his lip again—a horrendous habit, and probably one that contributes to that god-awful sulk he has when things aren’t going his way. He turns around to face the sex worker and lies down on his back. “Like this,” he says.

The sex worker considers him, and then smiles, cat-like and prideful. “You look good,” he offers, reaching down and pulling a triangle-shaped pillow up from the side of the bed, setting his palm possessively on Ren’s robe-covered calf. “Here, lift up.”

Ren does so, lets the sex worker put the pillow underneath his hips, his hands completely hidden by the folds of Ren’s robe.

“There,” the sex worker says.

Hux glances down at the paperwork again. It’s signed with _Xixor_ , of all the improbable names. Xixor looks as though he’s fairly satisfied with himself, and Hux is irritated for a reason that he can’t quite figure out.

“Ready to go again?”

Ren gestures with his bare hand, the sleeve of his robe sliding back to his elbow and exposing a long length of bare forearm.

He’s muscled there too, because of course he is.

Hux looks back down to the datapad, pages through over into the next document and starts reading through the—

Ren moans.

Hux looks up.

Ren is shifting his head, moving it on the pillow, hair pooled out around him like some kind of—oh, fucking hell, he’s inadvertently looking right through the glass, and Hux feels a shudder go through his body.

Ren’s pupils are dilated. He’s not looking at Hux right now—he’s looking at the place where the console is—but Hux is standing close enough to the glass that he can see Ren’s pupils are dilated, and his face is flushed. It’s nothing like the recordings Hux watched, where Ren looked bored and disengaged at the best of times.

Right now, Ren looks as though he’s getting satisfactorily fucked. As Hux watches, Ren brings his hand up to his thigh and actually pulls his knee in closer to his chest so that Xixor fucks into him harder, leaning forward over Ren and bracing himself on the bed, his hand far too close to Ren’s waist for Ren to be comfortable with it—but Ren isn’t objecting, and Hux wants to scream. He can see the exact shade of lacquer Xixor is wearing on his manicured fingernails, and he’s not interested in that at all, not when he’s trying to count the moles on Ren’s suddenly exposed calf, not when he’s watching the way the robe is shifting as Ren gets fucked, hard and fast, and Ren’s breathing is actually picking up now into a _pant_ , and Hux feels—

“Harder,” Ren demands like the pillow princess he is, tapping Xixor on the forearm. “Fuck me harder.”

Xixor nods, straightens up so that he’s vertical, and braces himself on Ren’s calves this time instead, pistons his hips harder. Hux watches in horror as Ren falls apart completely, back arching and hand actually going between his own legs, and if Hux were in the sex worker’s place, he wouldn’t allow that for a damn moment, because that’s not what this is about. If Ren wanted to get himself off, he could have gotten himself off in his own goddamn room. There is no fucking reason for him to go through this entire charade and all this paperwork if what Ren actually wants is his own big meaty hand clutching at the fabric pooled between his legs.

“You look gorgeous like this,” Xixor says.

What an asshole comment. Any fucking fool could see that Ren is—

—coming, actually, with the way his hand spasms between his legs, the way he arches his back and his neck, the way it almost looks, for one moment, as though everything in the room is hovering, just a little tiny bit, and maybe Hux is hovering too, because he’s feeling oddly light-headed at the moment, disoriented and disorganized and—

—there’s a loud clatter as the datapad Hux is holding falls to the floor. Hux curses and bends to scoop it up, wincing as his back twitches, looking through the glass to see if they were able to hear the noise—

—and he makes eye contact with Ren through the glass, just for a moment. Ren’s eyes are only half-open, eyelashes fluttering. There are tears in the corners of his eyes, and his nose looks like it’s starting to run. His lower lip is raw.

Hux looks down at the datapad.

The screen is shattered.

* * *

Hux stands on the other side of the glass once the room is empty, and the droids have cleared everything away.

It is impossible to see through the reciprocal glass from this side. Even knowing exactly where it is, even knowing the layout of the furniture on the other side, it is impossible to see anything from this side other than a blank durasteel wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings:** a number of sex workers were hired and paid well during the course of this fic; and will continue to be hired and paid well after the fic is complete | Ren doesn’t ask for permission to skim Hux’s thoughts; Hux is resigned | Hux is dealing with chronic pain (back, migraines) throughout; it’s mostly self-managed through medication | Ren exclusively wants to get fucked; no discussion of other preferences | Hux suspects Ren is a virgin; this cannot be confirmed | Ren wears rather a lot of robes and makeup throughout | Hux watches Ren with multiple sex workers, both through previously recorded security footage and live through observation via the equivalent of a two-way mirror
> 
> Deadsy both beta-read and also copyedited this fic, and also helped me fine-tune a whole lot of stuff that I couldn't quite nail on my own. Thank you. <3 
> 
> Happy holidays, everyone!
> 
> The rest of the fic is drafted and edited, so the next chapter should be coming in a few days here!
> 
> I'm mostly on [twitter](https://twitter.com/heyktula), though I do have [dreamwidth](https://ktula.dreamwidth.org/), and [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/ktula).


	2. Standup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The requisitions for sex workers to fuck the Supreme Leader continue to be filed.
> 
> The morning meetings between the Supreme Leader and Grand Marshal are...smoother than usual, perhaps.
> 
> Not that Hux wants to admit it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings are at the end.

“—well?”

Hux turns his head to look sharply at Ren, and then winces when his neck twinges, only just barely covers the instinctive need to bring his gloved hand to rub at it. “Thank you for your concern, Supreme Leader.” He has no idea what Ren’s just said, but Ren has that cock-eyed tilt to his head paired with the intense stare which usually means he’s asking invasive questions about Hux’s health for absolutely no reason at all. “I’ve spoken with the representatives from Sienar-Jaemus, and scheduled another meeting for later this week. If you have any additional requests, please forward them to me in advance—I’ll work them into the agenda and ensure that everything is prioritized appropriately.”

“With my items at the top,” Ren drawls.

“If that’s what the Supreme Leader wishes.” He can’t stop thinking about the way Ren’s face had looked last night, bleary with sex, looking like he might have slightly enjoyed himself. He doesn’t want to comb back through the requisitions and figure out how many fuck sessions Ren’s had to book in order to finally look as though he’d partially enjoyed himself.

Doesn’t want to look at his own paperwork to know whether or not Ren is doing it again tonight.

(It’s so bloody inefficient.)

“I want them to answer for the banthashit they tried to feed us in the last set of reports,” Ren says, voice low as he paces around the room. He’s wearing black robes again, but with a deep vee in the front, exposing his hairless chest. It’s entirely inappropriate for the situation they’re in—which is this stupid fucking meeting in Ren’s quarters, Ren pretending that—that nothing is wrong, that he hasn’t been giving up entirely too much information about himself every time that he goes to one of these fucking liaisons, every single time. “I want them to know that it is unacceptable for them to be the official suppliers for _my_ First Order if they refuse to send the full technical specifications and every single piece of data for their reports along with the standard documentation. I do not care that ‘no one’ can read it. It is not my fault they don’t bother to promote people with technical skills into the upper ranks. You can read it, and I can read it, and we have other engineers who can read it, and I refuse to receive another one of their summary reports. If they continue to send summary reports, I will find a new ship supplier.”

There isn’t another ship supplier, but it doesn’t matter.

Ren is right.

What Sienar-Jaemus has been doing—has been trying to do—is unacceptable. And the First Order— _Ren’s_ First Order—will not accept it.

Hux shifts his balance. He would prefer to be pacing right now as well—but a simple shift indicates that his back won’t tolerate that today, so he settles into parade rest again. “You remember the other three companies we eliminated?”

“I remember.”

“I suggest we…open new discussions with them. Discussions that look serious from our end.” He glances over at Ren.

Ren is smiling. “Discussions that Sienar-Jaemus will see us having.”

“Precisely.”

“I like it,” Ren says.

“I’ll make it happen,” Hux replies. He nods sharply, steels himself, and turns to go back to his own quarters.

“Hux,” Ren says softly.

Hux stops walking.

Doesn’t turn around.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Ren says, voice lilting. Mocking. “Are you well?”

“I don’t know that it matters,” Hux says tightly.

“I could make it better,” Ren offers.

Hux shakes his head. Leaves.

He can hear Ren chuckling as the door slides shut behind him.

* * *

There’s another requisition. It’s the first one on the stack of flimsi on Hux’s desk, and there’s no harm on picking it up first, because it’ll be the exact same as every other nearly-blank requisition that Ren has filed.

Except it’s not.

It’s the middle of his shift, and Hux is in his office with the door open, knowing perfectly well that any one of his officers could walk in at any point now, and he is reading the words _slender build, light hair, no beard_ with his own eyes. He pinches the bridge of his nose, closes his eyes.

(The headache is back. Of course the headache is back.)

It’s not the only section of the form that Ren’s filled out either. He’s made a half-assed stab at filling in the fetish section with things that are absolutely not fetishes, although it’s encouraging to see that Ren considers _Imperial accent_ to be a bonus. It indicates he’s at least starting to see his own slow drawl as the liability it is.

“Grand Marshal?”

Hux looks up, winces as his eyes adjust.

“The Supreme Leader has requested your presence in a meeting,” Captain Mitaka says.

Hux glances down at the requisition one more time, thinks inadvertently of Ren’s hair, spread out on the pillow like an ink blot, of white teeth dug into a lower lip redder than it had any right to be. He stands, slowly, still carrying the flimsi. Considers it for a moment, and then signs off on it, sets it back down. Taps his thumb on it to secure the data. “Where?”

“Fourth deck,” Mitaka says. “I’ve held the tram.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

Hux is halfway through the meeting before he realizes that he didn’t put the observer agreement into the work pool. He hesitates, glances over to the head of the table where Ren is sitting, bored. He’s wearing what Hux has come to think of as his formal robes—all black velvet with rich purple detailing, his face painted so heavily it serves the same purpose as the mask he used to wear. His expression is flat and his fingertips are drumming on his knee, but it’s almost as though he senses Hux looking at him, because he turns, ever so slightly, in Hux’s direction, and the expression on his face changes, just slightly.

Hux redirects his gaze, looks down at his datapad. Brings the observer request up, and assigns it to himself.

There’s no point putting it into the pool.

He’ll just look after it.

* * *

This one’s name—or assumed name—is Tereth, and he’s a slender man with dark skin, a sharp jaw, and white hair so unnatural that Hux suspects it will react under UV light. He’s slender enough to be nearly emaciated, and the sight holds little visual appeal for Hux.

It doesn’t appear to hold much for Ren, either—the man hardly got a second glance from Ren even as he disrobed completely, displaying a completely shorn pubic area and a hard cock which Hux hopes desperately wasn’t visible through the robe on the contractor’s trek through the ship, because the last thing they need is for this to be even more of a mockery than it already is.

Ren, as is usual, is staying clothed—though he goes immediately onto his back this time, hikes his knee up to his chest as though that position was better for him. Hux is pretty sure there’s no anatomical reason for it, but maybe Ren is just lazy enough to want to not even bother supporting his own weight. Tereth looks a little confused at first, and Hux glances over to the microphone that’s attached to the security cameras, as though giving him instruction should even be necessary—but there’s no way that Ren wouldn’t recognize Hux’s voice, so that option is eliminated as unfeasible before it becomes fully formed. The choreography that ensues would be comical if it weren’t such a waste of time—true to his usual procedure, Ren refuses to participate and stares up at the ceiling, leaving Tereth to look after the prep work (hidden due to the bulk of Ren’s robe and the angle of his knee), the condom (though Hux is encouraged to see that Tereth carries more than one with him, there’s absolutely no need to do so considering Ren’s considerable lack of enthusiasm), and the positioning on the bed (which is awkward for Tereth considering how narrow the bed is, and how sprawled out and immovable Ren is).

Hux sighs, and picks up the data pad to start combing through the documentation. That Tereth could pose a security concern is absurd—Ren could break the slender twink’s back without even opening his eyes. He wishes Ren would take two seconds and actually fill out the form completely, because at this point, Hux cannot imagine assigning anyone else to these excruciatingly boring observation shifts unless it’s a punishment of some sort—

“Harder.”

Hux looks up.

Ren has hiked up his robe on the side closest to the glass, his bare hand splayed on his bare knee, and his entire leg exposed, ankle to calf to knee to thigh all the way around to the curve of his arse. He looks good, as much as Hux hates to admit it. He also hates to admit that he’ll think of this tomorrow morning, when Ren is all covered up again, and he’ll think of this when Ren is bare-faced in front of him, because he can’t ever be bothered to put his face on in the morning, insists on showing himself to Hux completely exposed. Not like now, where Tereth gets the benefit of seeing Ren’s over-lined plush lips darkened until they’re very nearly the same colour as the juice of an Arkanis plum, and Hux has no idea how Tereth is able to watch Ren so disinterestedly.

“Fuck,” Ren gasps in the next room, arching his back a little. The eyeliner enhancing his eyes has smeared at some point, and Hux has no idea when that happened. “Fuck, that’s good. I want more.”

“Turn over,” Tereth encourages, voice low. “Turn over and brace yourself.”

Hux expects Ren to object—goodness knows trying to get the man to shift on anything once he’s made up his mind is an exercise in futility—but he’s shocked, instead, when Ren actually does it, lets go of his knee and rolls over onto all fours. Of course, everything is covered by the robes again—except that Ren reaches back and tugs some of the bulk of the robe out of the way, exposing the curve of his arse, and the meat of his thigh.

Hux can feel his heart beating in his ears. It’s very disconcerting. He sets the datapad down, glances at the chair next to the computer. It’s wheeled. It looks clean. The droids clean this room on a regular basis, and this is the second observation shift in a row that Hux is taken, so surely it would be safe to sit. Just for a moment.

He sits. Watches the way Tereth’s hand clenches onto Ren’s hip as he fucks into him, other hand pressing down on the small of Ren’s back. Ren’s face is buried in the pillow, but his wet gasping is still audible through the audio feed, and his hands are in his own hair, tugging at it.

They should be on his cock.

Ren should be touching himself, instead of dragging this out further. Ren should be giving himself the pleasure that he apparently won’t let Tereth give him. If Hux were there, he would deny Ren on purpose, he would force Ren into saying it with words, he wouldn’t give Ren anything more than the head of his dick until Ren buckled down and said what he wanted in words, until Ren proved that he wanted it by fucking _responding_ , until Ren actually participated in this like the Supreme Leader he is, instead of the spoiled prince that he apparently wants to become.

“Do you want me to touch you?” Tereth is asking. “Do you want me to slide my hand into your robe, touch you while I fuck you as hard and fast as you want it?”

Ren is panting into the pillow, thrusting back against Tereth nearly hard enough to knock the other man off the bed. In retaliation, Tereth leans harder into the small of Ren’s back, pressing him down.

“Get on with it, Ren,” Hux says, only realizing as the words echo in the observation chamber that he’s said them out loud.

It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter because Ren’s back tenses and he gasps, wetly, into the pillow as Tereth pounds him through his orgasm, leaning over Ren’s back and whispering something in his ear that’s too quiet for Hux to hear through the rushing of blood in his ears.

He dimly realizes that he’s hard.

He’s not sure when that happened.

When Ren finally sighs and relaxes, rolls over onto his back, there are plum-dark smears of lipstick marring the white pillowcase.

* * *

The makeup-stained pillowcase doesn’t fit into the pocket of Hux’s greatcoat.

He jams it in there regardless.

Ignores the stench of sex permeating the now-empty room.

The droids will air it out when they come to clean.

* * *

Ren isn’t in his rooms when Hux arrives for their morning meeting, but the door slides open for his presence. There’s water boiling when Hux comes in, and he’s familiar enough with Ren’s rooms now that he’s able to locate the tarine tea and the small teapot that Ren usually uses, starts steeping the leaves the way he likes them.

“Sorry I’m late,” Ren rumbles from behind him. As usual, he’s silent as a lothcat, and it’s all Hux can do to tighten his posture so he doesn’t inadvertently flinch.

He manages it just in time, turns.

His cutting remarks die on his lips.

Ren has his face on this morning. Not one of the formal faces he wears during meetings, the ones he uses like armour—but something more casual. There’s dark eyeliner around his eyes, swooping out past the corner, and his lips are the same deep plum as yesterday, slightly wet-looking. The rest of his face is naked. The black robe he’s wearing today is made of shimmersilk, so thin it clings to Ren’s torso like a second skin, and he’s standing far closer to Hux than he should be.

Hux opens his mouth, and nothing happens.

“You made tea,” Ren says. He leans in close, looking over Hux’s shoulder.

He smells like spice, like forest, like freshly-cut wood.

Hux swallows back saliva. Keeps his tongue in his mouth, even though it’s a struggle, even though Ren’s bare neck is right there, his hair pulled back exposing his skin, the scattering of moles across his flesh.

When Ren pulls back, there’s an odd expression at the corners of his mouth.

Hux is still frozen solid.

Ren reaches forward. The polish on his nails is the exact same shade as his lipstick.

He adjusts Hux’s collar—tugs at it gently, smooths it down with his fingers—and Hux’s breath catches.

“Now,” Ren says. “What shall we discuss this morning, Grand Marshal?”

* * *

Hux is still out of breath when he leaves the Supreme Leader’s quarters, so much so that he tugs at his collar on the way down the hall, actually unhooks the top clasp. It doesn’t help. There’s something wrong with the ventilation on the ship, it’s far too hot here. The air isn’t circulating properly.

(Ren’d had his fingers wrapped around the mug, and there was a faint smear of his lipstick on the rim. Hux had forgotten to drink his own tea, had swallowed the cold liquid back at the end of the meeting, and now he’s left with the bitter taste of it lingering in the back of his throat.)

He doesn’t make it to his office until nearly the end of his shift, comes in to find that there is no paperwork on his desk.

Correction—there is no requisition on his desk. Not even after he shuffles through all the flimsi specifically looking for it.

He comms Ren before he’s even thought the message through.

_GM A. Hux: What are you playing at?_

_SL K. Ren: I don’t know what you mean._

_SL K. Ren: Is this about the supplier meetings?_

_SL K. Ren: I told Mitaka to prep you._

Hux’s face goes hot, and then cold. He taps out a vicious response, and then erases it character by character, tosses his datapad down on his desk, and goes to the viewing port that overlooks the bridge, tries to get a grip on himself. He doesn’t even know why he’s so fucked up by this, doesn’t know why his heart is pounding and his breath is catching in his lungs and he is very _angry_ for a reason that he can’t—

“Am I interrupting?”

Hux spins on his heel, winces as his entire back spasms. He can _feel_ the blood drain from his face, and it’s either audibly smack his gloved hand back against the wall to brace himself or fall on his arse in front of Ren, so he settles for smacking the wall and biting his lip, hoping that Ren will interpret his facial expression as anything other than what it actually is.

He deep-breathes his way through three cycles of long breaths, delaying the moment when he has to look up and meet Ren’s eyes—but it doesn’t much matter, because there’s the sound of something landing on Hux’s desk, a few quick strides, and then Ren’s bare hand on Hux’s wrist, big fingers pressing in underneath the cuff of Hux’s uniform and pushing down against Hux’s radial artery.

“Can I help?” Ren asks.

“No,” Hux snaps, his back still seized. “It’ll give in a moment.”

“I can loosen the muscles.”

The image of all Hux’s muscles loosening at once and his body dropping to the floor like a sack of garbage is an unpleasant one, but it’s either that or get a droid in here, and Hux doesn’t want this on the medical records. (He’s been so careful.) “…be precise about it.”

“Yes,” Ren says softly, and he presses harder with his fingers.

There’s a sensation of—cold, like there’s ice being injected directly into his veins, similar to a painkiller they’d once put him on through intravenous that had chilled its way through his circulatory system. No sooner has Hux thought that than he takes a breath and it _works_. He’s able to straighten up entirely, shift his balance. The pain is still there, but it’s—dulled. Retreated.

Ren’s fingers are still on Hux’s wrist.

“Thank you,” Hux says. He clears his throat, but makes no move to step away.

Ren doesn’t move either. He’s still wearing the makeup he was wearing this morning, but he’s switched the robe out to one that’s made of a thicker material, one that covers him a little more, although his neck is still exposed, and his hair is up. He’s just standing next to Hux and breathing, and Hux—Hux doesn’t mind it at all.

“What did you need?” Hux asks, after a moment. The pain has receded to the point where Hux can actually fucking think, and he figures he’d probably give Ren whatever he asked for right now, if Ren can fix his back like this, without any paperwork needing to be filed for it.

Ren starts, takes a step back. “Nothing,” he mutters, looking off to the side, and backing away from Hux. “I thought—but I’ll share my notes with you tomorrow. Let me know if you want to postpone the morning meeting. If your back is still giving you trouble.” He makes an odd tugging gesture with his hand, and then disappears from Hux’s office in a swirl of robes.

It’s only afterwards that Hux remembers there’d been a clatter when Ren had come in, as though he’d tossed something on Hux’s desk—but Hux checks on, in, and around his desk, and there’s no requisition there.

* * *

“Rescheduled at the Supreme Leader’s request,” Mitaka repeats. He hesitates, looks down at his data pad for a moment, before looking back up at Hux. “Should I…have questioned that, Grand Marshal?”

Hux glances down at his own datapad again, his schedule miraculously clear of meetings. “No need to question our Supreme Leader,” Hux says, and the statement carries a little bit less venom than usual. “I trust he has the best interests of the Order in mind.”

When he walks away from Mitaka with the intention of going back to his office, he realizes that his back pain is hardly noticeable at all.

He gets halfway to his office, and then decides—kriff it. He’s heading back to his quarters, and he’s going to soak in his jetted tub, and enjoy the time off.

If Ren wanted him somewhere, Ren would have scheduled him.

* * *

The same thought occurs to Hux mid-bath. He’s been mostly submerged for two hours, and between the whiskey, the painkillers, the jets in the tub, and Ren’s karking _magic_ , Hux is feeling more relaxed than he’s felt for days.

If Ren wanted him somewhere, Ren would have scheduled him.

But what in hell has Ren scheduled himself for?

Hux floats his projector into the tub, taps through to log into his datapad. Ren’s schedule is accessible to Hux, for some reason, and Hux wonders mildly how long it’s been that way. He’s quite certain that back when they were still equals, Ren’s schedule was entirely private—but, then, he wouldn’t have cared to check back then anyway, because what did it matter whether a spoiled child had been scheduled into a meeting or not when there was no guarantee that he would actually attend.

(Hux thinks, again, of Ren lying back on that too-narrow bed, with his hair up and his makeup on and his entire body lax, waiting to be pushed about and stimulated by a stranger he won’t even lower himself to communicate with.)

Ren’s schedule is ordinary, right down to the gym visits that occur, apparently, twice a day. Hux is just about to close out of the calendar entirely, when he notices a suspiciously blank item at the end of the day.

It’s a meeting occurring in the same room that Ren always uses for his liaisons.

But a requisition hadn’t crossed Hux’s desk.

Ren’s going ahead without him.

Hux scowls, dismisses the calendar, and puts the projector away.

There’s no reason for any of this. It’s chronic back pain with the occasional migraine, and it hasn’t stopped Hux from working at any point in his career for more than a few hours. Even if a migraine prevents him from reading for a few hours, that’s why droids exist. They’re perfectly capable of reading even the most technical of reports aloud.

There’s a moment where Hux thinks that maybe Ren has just hired a sex worker without filling in any of the paperwork whatsoever, which is an entirely separate series of problems—but when he pulls himself out of the tub, wraps himself in his robe, and checks the system, there’s a requisition right there, from Ren, for tonight, filed _immediately_ after Ren had left Hux’s office that morning, and shortly before Ren had rescheduled every single one of Ren’s meetings—which means that Ren deliberately withheld the requisition from Hux.

Hux scowls.

If Ren didn’t think Hux could handle reviewing the requisition, then Ren needs to be corrected.

And, conveniently, Hux knows exactly where Ren is located right now.

Hux tightens his jaw, stabs another stim into his thigh, and sets about getting dressed.

* * *

“Out,” Hux says, and the lieutenant sitting in the observation chair scrambles out of the room, face bright red and hat in their hand instead of on their head. Hux has half a mind to discipline them, but it doesn’t matter the moment that he catches a glimpse of Ren, who is back to the same banthashit as usual—fully dressed on all fours, with his hair hanging around his face and his hands relaxed on the bed, completely disinterested.

Hux checks the chrono. It’s fifty-three minutes through the session, and usually Ren has come after thirty, so whatever is going on today, it clearly hasn’t been satisfactory. Hux checks the computer to see if the appropriate data has been filled in—and then looks up when he hears Ren’s voice on the other side of the glass.

“You can go,” Ren says, voice low and threatening.

The sex worker looks at him for a moment—and then doesn’t say anything further, just pulls out, removes the condom, and starts getting dressed as quickly as he can.

(Hux doesn’t blame him. He’s seen lesser men run away from that look.)

If he’s going to confront Ren, it should be now.

Now, when Ren is still on the bed, all fours. When he’s just been fucked. When he’s probably still wet, when his robes are probably still parted in the back, when he—

Hux swallows.

He can’t make himself step forward, and for once, it has nothing to do with his back. Instead, he just stands there, hidden in the observation room. Watches as Ren sighs, and drags his hand back through his hair, kneels upright on the bed and adjusts his robes, cocks his head to the side like he can hear something.

The observation room is silent. The room Ren is in is silent.

And then, something that Hux wouldn’t believe if he hadn’t watched it with his own eyes—between one breath and the next, Ren is gone.

* * *

The room still smells like sex. It’s been ten minutes since Ren’s unceremonious departure. There’s still twenty minutes until the cleaning droids are due to arrive, and the room reeks of sex, lubricant, and the spice scent of Ren’s hair.

Strange, though. Hux didn’t think Ren’s hair smelled all that strong, typically. He’s never known the smell to carry over in a room when Ren wasn’t there.

He takes a lap of the bed, not after anything in particular. There are no lipstick smears on the pillowcase this time, so there’s no reason for Hux to remove that, and he’s quite certain that Ren hadn’t actually gotten off, so there’s not much that the droids will have to clean. He sits on the edge of the bed anyway, even though his back isn’t hurting that badly. Puts his hand on the mattress where Ren’s hand was, although all he can see now is a slight crease in the sheet. He wants to lay on the bed, in the place where Ren was, inhale whatever is leftover of the scent of him, imagine how different it would have been if it had been Hux in here instead of some sex worker who isn’t paid enough to criticize Ren when he stubbornly refuses to say what he wants—

“Grand Marshal,” Ren intones from beside him.

Hux turns and snaps the monomolecular blade out from his wrist sheath, pressing it against the fabric of Ren’s robe.

Ren chuckles, low in his throat. “Did you think I’d gone?”

Hux stares up at him. They’re at a height disparity, with Ren looming over him and Hux seated. Ren’s face is still slightly pink, and his eyes are wet, and Hux is so furious for having been made a fool of that he’s half-tempted to just press the blade into Ren’s skin and be done with it, claim it was self-defense after being startled. His heart is pounding in his throat and he’s fucking furious, certain Ren is laughing at a joke that Hux just doesn’t get. It’s cruel even for Ren, who isn’t known for being particularly kind about anything—

Ren makes an odd noise in the back of his throat, and Hux comes back to himself, thumbs the catch to pull the blade back in. He stands, tugs at his tunic to adjust it. His entire lower body feels too hot, his upper body too cold. His back aches. His head is spinning.

“You’re lucky I didn’t stab you,” Hux says curtly.

“I think—”

Hux turns before Ren can finish his sentence, stalks out of the room. The troopers outside the door shift out of his way, and if any of them are surprised to see Hux exiting from this room instead of the observation room, they’re smart enough not to say anything about it.

* * *

Hux is showering that evening, just as he always does. The sliver of soap he has remaining is sadly inadequate, so he opens a new bar, remembers once the water hits it that they’ve switched preferred suppliers for the First Order hygiene products. The new soap has a slight hint of spice that wasn’t present on his previous soap. He shrugs, starts scrubbing his body, turning his skin pink, exfoliating as he cleans.

He’s washing his lower body when he realizes he’s hard, and his washcloth stills. It’s not an unusual occurrence, it’s just that Hux doesn’t quite remember the last time it happened without him putting in the deliberate effort to become that way. He glances up at the chrono. Five or ten minutes later to bed than usual won’t hurt him any. He rinses out the washcloth, and then closes his eyes, uses one hand to brace himself on the shower wall while the other goes to his cock.

It doesn’t matter what he thinks about.

The scent of spice is everywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings:** Sex workers continue to be paid well to fuck the Supreme Leader under observation | Hux has a back spasm in front of Ren; Ren fixes it with the Force after consent is obtained | Hux treats his chronic pain through meds (including a brief mention of jabbing a needle into his thigh), but responsibly | Hux pulls his blade on Ren when startled and considers stabbing him | 
> 
> Deadsy did the beta and copyedit for this chapter as well. Thank you. <3 
> 
> Happy New Year!
> 
> Final chapter comes in a few days ... my apologies for the irregular posting schedule on this one; I'm away from home at the moment and my availability is sketchy at best.
> 
> I'm mostly on [twitter](https://twitter.com/heyktula), though I do have [dreamwidth](https://ktula.dreamwidth.org/), and [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/ktula).


	3. Residuals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Supreme Leader and his Grand Marshal forge a new understanding of each other.
> 
> Also, there's more paperwork.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here you have it. The last chapter of something that was intended to be a one-shot, and absolutely refused to make itself smaller.
> 
> (It's better this way than the one-shot version, though, so I think we can be content with that.)
> 
> Content notes are at the end.

_SL K. Ren: Do you need to reschedule this morning’_ _s meeting?_

_GM A. Hux: Absolutely not, I’m on my way._

_SL K. Ren: I was wondering about your back._

_SL K. Ren: You_ _’re well, then?_

_SL K. Ren: How did you sleep?_

* * *

There are six additional unread messages on Hux’s datapad by the time he arrives at Ren’s rooms, all in the same vein as the three Ren had sent while Hux was still in his rooms. Hux opens them all, reads them, and then leaves them without a response. Hux’s health or personal habits are not the purpose of these meetings. He will not answer questions about his health or his personal habits. It’s not fair of Ren to ask him—

Hux’s hands are shaking as he touches the access pad to get into Ren’s rooms. He enters the room, and just—stops.

Swallows.

(The door shuts behind him.)

There is a platter of fruit on the low table in front of Ren’s couch. A cup of tarine tea steaming gently on a saucer, placed in front of the end of the couch closest to the door. Ren, himself, is seated on the other end of the couch.

He’s essentially naked.

Sure, there’s a robe in play, if one absolutely stretches the definition of robe in a way it is not meant to be stretched. Likewise, the fabric Ren is wearing is not meant to be stretched across his broad shoulders like that, the black fabric rendered nearly transparent from the tension. The…clothing is sheer enough that Ren’s nipples are visible, as are the lines of his abs. There’s a dark line of fabric crossing over one hip that Hux assumes is an attempt at underwear, though not official First Order issue.

_Maybe_ , Hux thinks, _this is more residual Empire garbage_ , and he has to suppress a laugh at that, because the First Order has inherited the same stick up its collective ass that the Empire had—so this particular outfit has to be Republican in origin, just the same as the rest of Ren’s sins.

Ren hasn’t said anything yet, so Hux shrugs, removes his gloves and takes a careful seat on the other end of the couch, so far over to the side that his hip presses up against the arm. If this is a game that Ren is playing, Hux doesn’t much care for it—but, then, Hux had deliberately been five minutes late this morning.

(He hadn’t been hard naturally in the shower that morning—but it hadn’t taken much to get himself that way deliberately. The resulting orgasm had loosened his muscles up enough that he’s on less medication than usual at present.)

He reaches for the tea with his bare hand, wraps his fingers around the mug. Inhales the steam. Looks over.

Ren is watching him. His face is naked this morning, hair elegant and loose around his shoulders. He’s quite gorgeous, if one likes that sort of thing.

“Sienar-Jaemus,” Hux prompts. “To start with, at least.”

Ren exhales, all in a heavy whoosh. “Right,” he says, twitching his fingers and floating a piece of fruit from the platter toward him. “They’ve been scrambling. They’re claiming, now, that they can provide the data we’ve requested, but that they need time…”

Hux scoffs, continues drinking his tea.

“…that’s it,” Ren says. “I gave them the time. No further updates.”

Hux raises an eyebrow. “Nothing else to discuss, Supreme Leader?”

Ren shifts on the couch, spreading his knees, and saying absolutely nothing.

Hux goes through his own mental list of items—much easier, again, when he’s feeling relaxed. He wonders what he was dreaming about last night, that he’s feeling so put-together. This is the sharpest mentally he’s felt since Crait, actually.

(Well, since before that. Since before Starkiller exploded, and all his dreams with it.)

“Nothing on my end either, then,” Hux says. “You’ve got everything well in hand here.” He takes another drink of his tea, hesitates, then tips the cup again and drinks it to the dregs. Contemplates a second cup, decides against it. He has the time, he may as well get to his office, get started on paperwork early. There’s nothing else for him to do here. “Thank you for the tea.” He stands, back cracking audibly—but the pain doesn’t get worse, and he can’t help the small smile that spreads on his face.

“There is this,” Ren says, voice dark.

Hux turns.

Ren is extending a piece of flimsi toward him, robe slipping down his elbow and leaving his forearm bare. It’s a nice forearm. Hux reaches for the flimsi, takes it. Scans over it quickly. Another requisition. This one appears to be filled out, even.

“Oh, so you’re going to engage with the process now?” Hux asks, skimming through the requirements for the sex worker. _Male dominant top, tall, slender, red hair, pale skin, Imperial accent, dick size irrelevant_.

“What the hell is your problem, Hux?” Ren snaps.

Hux glances up.

Ren looks furious, for some reason. His massive arms are crossed over his chest, and the sheer black robe is pulled tight across his skin.

“You’re wasting First Order resources,” Hux says mildly. “I don’t see the point in continuing to have these liaisons if you’re going to lie there like a starfish during.”

Ren leans forward in an attempt to be threatening. “So you admit you’ve been watching.”

“You know I’ve been watching,” Hux says. “You made a childish point of ‘catching’ me last night. You can look back at your leisure and see who takes the observation shifts. You have more access to the system than what I do, I’m sure.” Hux doesn’t bother mentioning that he has access to a slicer to get him anything that falls outside the purview of a Grand Marshal—but, then again, Ren has the Force, so they’re likely both able to get whatever they like out of the computer systems, one way or another.

Ren stands, nearly knocking into his own low table before stalking off to the side. He paces a few steps away before whirling back, setting his robe spinning, and thrusting a finger out at Hux. “ _You’ll_ take this observation shift.”

Hux shrugs, tucks the piece of flimsi into the pocket of his greatcoat. “If my Supreme Leader requests it.”

“It’s none of your business how I fuck,” Ren continues, like it’s a threat.

“Certainly.”

“The First Order is mine.”

_The First Order is ours_ , Hux thinks, but he bites his tongue on that one.

It’s been a good day so far.

There’s no need to ruin it.

* * *

Hux spends more time during the day thinking about Ren’s robe than what he strictly should, in retrospect. It’s not the most professional he’s ever been on the bridge—especially with the amount of time he devotes to imagining Ren on the bridge wearing exactly that robe, stalking about while Hux stands calmly at parade rest, watching him. Presumably the robe would have been just as sheer in the back as it was in the front. Perhaps whatever ridiculous excuse for undergarments Ren was wearing would have been exposed more clearly.

He’s a little disappointed that Ren doesn’t actually make an appearance, transparent robe or no—but Hux knows he’ll watch Ren getting fucked again tonight, and he’ll get to see the sheer robe in action.

* * *

Ren is not wearing the sheer robe.

Ren is wearing a heavy fabric robe which has clearly been used in battle. The edges of it are ragged, and the entire thing is too long for Ren since he’s not wearing his boots, is just clad in thick black socks that go up past his calves. He’s rearranged the furniture in the room so that the bed is now facing the observation room, head-on, and the only thing that Hux can see is Ren’s long hair, hanging down toward the white sheets of the bed, and his gloved hands, loose on the bed as he braces himself on his forearms. Otherwise, as usual, he’s not participating at all.

Hux takes another drink of his tea, watches the sex worker instead. It’s another in the long endless supply of twinks that they’ve continued to send over. Hux wonders idly if any of them bunk on the ship directly, or whether they’re shuttled over as needed. It would probably make sense to room a number of them here—but Hux has no idea which department would actually look after that type of thing. It’s not as though there’s a designated red-light district on the ship for them to stay, and Hux is quite certain they would miss the comforts of wherever they come from if they were to be stationed here.

This one is named _Stardust,_ of all the things to choose as a name. True to Ren’s request, he has a shock of bright red hair styled in a mullet, and pale skin. His hands are placed on Ren’s clothed hips, and he’s fucking into Ren steadily at the same pace he’s been using for the last twenty minutes while Ren breathes deeply underneath him, and doesn’t so much as shift. It’s aesthetically pleasant to watch the man’s abs flex—but it’s not doing terribly much for Hux otherwise. It must not be doing much for Ren, either—he’s meditating again.

Well, two can play at that game.

Hux pulls out his datapad, and starts going through his emails.

He’s certain Ren knows he’s here, and he’s not averse to making a point.

* * *

“Are you satisfied with yourself?” Hux asks, after.

Ren flops onto his side on the bed, facing away from Hux. The sex worker is long gone, the room smells of sweat and lubricant, and Hux hadn’t necessarily meant to come into the room—but he’d been slightly concerned when Ren had dismissed the sex worker and then immediately laid down in bed, not bothering to move at all. For five minutes, certainly—but ten? Fifteen? It’s excessive, and Hux was concerned for Ren’s—well, whatever.

He’s here now.

“Did you even get off?”

“Fuck off, Hux,” Ren mutters. “You don’t need to rub it in.”

“I’m not _rubbing it in_ ,” Hux retorts, crossing his arms over his chest and staring at the mass of black fabric covering Ren’s body. “I’m merely questioning why you continue to go through a nightly charade of a thing you’re not even enjoying.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t enjoying it.”

“Well, there’s no indication that you—”

Ren exhales heavily, turns over on the bed until he’s lying on his back. Even through the excess fabric and the thick robes, his erection is visible—a long line pressing up from between his legs, weighed down by fabric but still very, very apparent.

Hux swallows.

“I didn’t say I wasn’t enjoying it,” Ren repeats, blinking those half-lidded eyes up at Hux. His own black-gloved hand—and why, for pfassk’s sake, would Ren even be wearing gloves in the first place—touches his chest, drags down those thick robes to his hip, and then—doesn’t touch his cock. Not even for a moment.

“You clearly didn’t get off,” Hux manages. His voice comes out rather steady, considering.

(He’s not light-headed, not now—but he does have a horrible suspicion as to what’s been causing all the strange symptoms he’s been experiencing around Ren, lately. He can tell himself that his own cock is hard in sympathy with Ren’s—but he’s never experienced any emotion in sympathy with Ren in his entire life, and _lust_ seems like a strange place for that to start.)

Ren scowls, shrugs. Puts his hands on the bed like he’s going to sit up.

“Don’t move,” Hux says sharply.

Ren freezes.

Lays back down, actually _listening_ for once, and Hux could slap him. Of all the karking times for Ren to listen to him—why now?

(Why not on Crait? What the pfassk could Hux have done to get this kind of obedience on Crait?)

“Is this a medical issue? Don’t answer that, I don’t care.” Hux is walking closer to the bed. He’s not thinking about what he’s saying. He’s not thinking about why he’s saying it. He wonders, briefly, if Ren is compelling him to do this, but Ren’s particular style of _command_ doesn’t come with a hunger in his gut, just a sharp headache like a needle through his skull. Hux is hungry right now.

He wonders, briefly, if he is actually starved.

Ren _reeks_ , from up close. Lubricant and sex, yes—but something else, as well. Sweat. Body odour. Not something Hux suspected from Ren.

Hux tugs the fingertips on his own gloves loose, first right and then left. Removes the gloves, folds them in half, and places them securely in his pocket. Paces forward to the bed, and picks up the edge of Ren’s robe between his fingers, lifts the fabric. It’s thick and coarse and heavy, the type of fabric that would rub Hux’s skin raw if he were to wear it without wearing a protective layer underneath. Presumably, Ren is fine—or perhaps this is part of the appeal, the itch and scratch of wearing fabric close to one’s skin that isn’t meant to be worn there. “This explains the smell,” he says coolly.

Ren glares up at him.

“Come on,” Hux says. “Roll over.” He meant, only, for Ren to roll on his stomach—stars know that he doesn’t want to continue having a conversation with the man knowing that his hard cock is _right there_ , because it’s an inappropriate way to converse with him—but Ren, as usual, deliberately misunderstands him, and rolls, instead, to all fours, bracing himself on his forearms again. Assuming the same position he was in.

As Hux watches—as Hux _stares_ —Ren arches his back, just a bit, and through some trickery of the Force, the robes fall away, baring his entire arse, his bare thighs, the socks that cover his calves and embrace the bottoms of his feet. He has moles here too, dotted all over his skin. Powerful thighs. Long legs that would put him at an awkward height for many men, but Hux is tall, too, and this won’t pose a problem if he just—

—Ren sighs, shifts his knees wide. The movement serves to lower his body and part his legs entirely, exposing Ren’s testicles (hanging loosely between his legs, the left lower than the right), the crack of his arse (accentuating the curve of it), and, finally, his hole.

Wet. Well-used. Ready.

Hux is standing right next to the bed.

“Put your hands on me,” Ren intones.

“No,” Hux says softly.

“I said—”

“I heard what you said, Supreme Leader.” Hux swallows, gathers himself. “I have not touched another man with my bare hands in years. I will not start now. Not for this.” Hux tries to think, and realizes there’s precious little capacity for that left—just as he realizes that if he doesn’t open his own jodhpurs soon and pull out his cock, he’ll be struggling to think about anything besides that.

Ren whines.

Hux glances at the bed, does some calculations—and then gracefully kneels at the end of it, centres himself behind Ren. Leans over Ren’s back, careful not to touch him in any way. He can’t get close to Ren’s ear this way, not like what he wants. He has to assume Ren is listening anyway.

(If Ren isn’t listening, Hux will leave.)

“This is a waste of First Order resources,” Hux says. “I am not inclined to continue these conversations if you are continuing to waste resources.”

Ren inhales deeply. Exhales. Inhales again.

“Well?”

He doesn’t need to see Ren’s face to know that Ren is smirking.

“Make it not a waste, then,” Ren drawls in his irritating Republican accent. “If you’re so concerned that my lack of orgasm has caused the time and money spent on this encounter to be a waste, then fix it for me.”

Hux’s own breath is measured. His hands are not trembling. His mind is clear.

“Aren’t you my Grand Marshal?” Ren continues. “Don’t you want the First Order to succeed—in all things?”

They are at the edge of a precipice. Hux can still walk away from this.

“As the Supreme Leader, am _I_ not the First Order?”

(Hux does not want to walk away.)

He touches the waist of his jodhpurs with his bare hand, flicks the clasp, parts the fabric. His cock is pressing against his underwear, making a mess of it. Condoms, there must be—

Ren extends his gloved hand backward. There’s a condom packet laying on his palm.

Hux takes it, bites the activator to remove the sterile protector, and one-handedly tugs the condom over his cock. “Do you need—”

“I’m wet enough,” Ren growls. And then, quieter. “Do it. Please.”

He's careful, when he puts his hands on Ren's hips. Only over the cloth. Only the places where the cloth is double-layered, so that he doesn't have to feel anything. One hand on either side of Ren's hips, before he moves his right hand to steady the base of his cock.

(He won't risk missing, sliding his cock up the crack of Ren's arse instead of deep inside him. Especially when Ren isn't going to do anything to cooperate.)

It's been a while for Hux. (He refuses to think about that.)

Ren is completely still underneath him. (He refuses to think about that.)

Ren's arse is snug as Hux presses his cock inside, warm even through the condom. (He can't think about anything else.)

Hux eases into him right up to the hilt, settles his clothed thighs up against Ren's bare ones, and just—stays there, for a moment.

(Not too long, though. He can't stay too long, he won't have Ren criticize him for this, he won't have Ren criticize him for anything, he will be absolutely above reproach in this _thing_ that Ren has absolutely taunted him into, this thing that Hux wants more than anything else. He will be perfect. He will be untouchable.)

"Fuck," Ren mutters underneath him.

Hux takes it as a command. Settles his right hand onto Ren's other hip, slowly draws his cock from Ren’s arse. He should pull it out all the way, should pull it completely out and let Ren suffer—but Ren's arse is so warm around his cock, and it's been quite a long time. He takes a moment to admire the way Ren clenches around the head of his cock, shifts a little bit underneath him. He'll be shifting more before this is all done, because Hux will be absolutely damned if he'll let Ren be a passive participant for him too.

He grips the robe, and Ren's hips underneath it, slides himself slowly forward, back in. He can feel the shudder of Ren's muscles even underneath his gloved fists, can feel the way Ren presses back against his legs, as though he's trying to get Hux even deeper. This time, he grinds against Ren once he's fully seated, presses Ren forward, digging his own boots into the bed for traction.

He expects Ren to taunt him, to say something, but Ren just exhales wetly and doesn't say anything at all. And that won't do.

It doesn't take Hux long to find a rhythm, to set a pace that's steady, punctuated with short, sharp jabs to keep Ren off-balance, to keep forcing those wet little exhales out of his mouth. Ren is hardly moving again, and as Hux watches, he hangs his head down between his shoulders.

"You do not," Hux says softly, "muffle your face in your pillow." He finishes the thrust he's on, stills himself. Pulls his gloves from his pocket, and puts them back on. (It's good, taking this moment. It'll slow his own orgasm, because he wants to make sure that he fucks one out of Ren first. He _needs_ to make sure that he fucks one out of Ren first.)

Ren whines.

“Head up,” Hux says softly. “Look straight ahead. I’m going to grab your hair.” He swallows. Waits. “Ren?”

Ren exhales heavily, lifts his head up proudly.

That’s fine. Hux will fuck that out of him too. He reaches forward with his gloved hand, wraps his fingers into Ren’s hair, and pulls, steadily, hauling Ren’s head back until his neck is exposed. “I wish you could see yourself with them,” he says. “The way you lay there like a decommissioned starship while they fuck you is disgraceful. We pay money for this. The First Order pays money for you to have sex workers imported here nightly, and I cannot continue to let this happen in good conscience if you’re not going to participate.” He twists his hand, strands of Ren’s hair tightening on the fingers of his gloves. Stars, but he wants to see the look on Ren’s face—and then he realizes immediately afterwards that he can _feel_ it, if nothing else. “I’m taking my hand off your hip,” he says, voice low. “And I’m going to start fucking you again. You need to participate, Ren.”

“Is that—a threat?” Ren manages breathlessly.

“Shut up,” Hux says. He rocks his hips, starts thrusting into Ren’s tight arse again, and brings his left hand up to Ren’s face, splaying his gloved hand over Ren’s face so that he can feel Ren’s reaction, even if he can’t see it.

Ren sighs, and Hux can feel the hot exhalation even through the leather. It’s good. It’s very good.

“I’ve seen you come untouched,” Hux says. “With Tereth, and with Xixor. I know you can do it, Ren. I want you to do it this time too. Make a mess of your robes. I want to know that you’re stalking back to your quarters with your own come drying on your balls. I want to know that you’re going to have to peel all this disgusting fabric off your wilted cock. I hope it pulls your pubic hair out at the root. I hope you suffer for being such—a—stubborn— _bastard_ —fuck, Ren.”

Ren is panting against Hux’s glove. He’s not resisting the hand in his hair, he’s not resisting how tightly Hux is holding his gloved hand across Ren’s mouth. He’s not resisting any of this, he’s welcoming Hux’s cock into his ass, and that’s not what Hux wants.

Hux wants the stubborn fuck to _participate_.

“Bottom better, Ren,” Hux snarls, and he lets go of Ren’s face, lets go of Ren’s hair, lets him fall back to the bed with his head hanging between his arms. “Come on. Convince me—”

Hux doesn’t know what it was that he said, but he recognizes that it’s awoken something in Ren, because suddenly, Ren is thrusting back onto Hux’s cock, panting loudly, and reaching back like he’s going to try and manhandle Hux onto the bed. Hux will not tolerate that, will not tolerate being touched or moved or anything. “You don’t deserve this. Give me your wrists,” Hux snaps.

It takes both of his hands to hold Ren still, and even then, Hux’s fingers don’t go the entire way around the meat of Ren’s wrists, especially with the bulk of the robes covering his skin, but it’s enough that Hux can haul back on Ren, lean back and thrust harder inside Ren’s arse. Now Ren is actually participating, struggling to fuck back on Hux or take control, which Hux doesn’t want him to do. They fight about it for a few minutes, Ren’s arse clenching and tightening around Hux’s cock as though he’s threatening to make Hux come prematurely—and that’s the part that pushes Hux over the edge, makes him angry enough that he lets go of both Ren’s wrists and _shoves._ Ren collapses forward onto the bed, and Hux drives into him harder, sliding his gloved hands up Ren’s back until they land on the back of his head, where he grinds Ren’s face into the pillow, fucking into him from behind.

Ren writhes underneath him, but makes no real attempt to get away, which is good, because if Ren made an actual attempt, this wouldn’t happen again, and in the back of his mind, Hux is vaguely aware that he wants this to happen again. That he actively wants this to happen again, that he’s going to come to this observation room and watch Ren get wrecked, and then he’s going to come in after the appointment is done and finish Ren off, or get off himself, or—something, or—

“Fuck,” Ren gasps underneath him, his voice muffled by the pillow. “Hux, I’ll—Hux, I’m going to—”

Hux turns Ren’s head to the side so that he can hear Ren’s voice, continues driving into him, thinking about schematics and starships and anything other than the way his gloved hand is pressing into Ren’s soft cheek, or how tight Ren is around him, and then Ren gasps, and cries out wetly, his arse clenching hard around Hux’s cock as Ren comes untouched into his robe.

“Make a mess of yourself,” Hux growls. “Spoiled rotten pillow prince, wasting all our resources when you won’t even engage to make sure that you get—yourself—off—”

(He realizes, after he’s said it, that he’s already come, that his own orgasm was completely swallowed by the overwhelming joy of having forced Ren into coming untouched, that his cock is still hard out of willpower alone and not because his erection is continuing, that he’s getting softer by the moment—but it doesn’t matter anymore, because Ren broke first, and whatever Hux does afterwards is irrelevant, because he got what he wanted out of Ren. He _made_ Ren submit.)

Afterwards, Ren rolls onto his back, stares blearily up at the ceiling. His robes are dark over his pelvis, and it feels as though there’s something unsaid between them—but Hux can’t think of what it could possibly be, so he settles for tugging the condom off his softened cock, tucking himself away, and straightening his uniform before he leaves the room entirely.

(His back is killing him. He hadn’t noticed at the time.)

* * *

Hux is unmistakably late to their morning meeting the next day. He tries to think of a reason on the way over, in case Ren questions him on it, but he can’t come up with anything. His alarm went off the same time it always does. He jerked off in the shower before coming over, but he reset his alarm last week to account for that, so it caused no delay. He hasn’t suddenly slowed in shaving or getting dressed. He’s taken painkillers to account for the extra stress to his back. It’s been the same routine for years.

He’s just…inexplicably late to Ren’s, and his throat is dry, and he feels an odd kind of—apprehension or excitement about coming into the room at all.

(He had woken up hard in the middle of his sleep cycle during the night, eyes flashing open after dreams of Ren underneath him, and Ren beside him, and Ren on top of him, and—and Ren. Just…Ren.)

The door opens to Hux’s command cylinder. Hux steps inside, takes off his cap and gloves and sets them on the side table, takes off his greatcoat and hangs it by the door.

Turns to the kitchen. Hesitates.

The water hasn’t been boiled. The room doesn’t smell like tea. The lights are dim and—

There’s a skidding sound from behind him.

“Hux,” Ren blurts. “Hi.”

Hux turns. Blinks. Stares.

Ren’s hair is wet, dripping onto his shoulders. He’s wearing a black First Order-issue undershirt, and loose black knee-length pants which cling enough to his thighs and hips that Hux is reasonably certain he’s not wearing underwear. His skin is wet, and his face is naked. Bare feet.

“...Supreme Leader.”

“So sorry,” Ren continues, taking a few steps forward and clearing the question of underwear up entirely. (He’s not wearing any.) “I—lost track of time, I’m sure your schedule is tight this morning, I don’t want you to think—”

“I have time,” Hux allows. He clears his throat, forces his eyes back up to Ren’s. “Finish what you’re doing, I’m sure I’m familiar enough to make myself a cup of tea.”

Ren exhales, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Yeah, please, I’ll just—be a second.”

When he turns to head back to the ‘fresher, Hux lets his eyes fall to the curve of Ren’s arse, the way the thin fabric clings to him.

It’s a good look on him.

Definitely not First Order approved.

But a good look nevertheless.

* * *

“You made me tea?” Ren asks a full half-hour later.

Hux looks up from his second cup. He’s standing on the other end of the room, browsing through Ren’s library (physical _books_ , of all the things), and marveling at the number of titles whose language he doesn’t even recognize. “You make yourself tea every time,” he points out.

“Right,” Ren says. He runs his hand back through his hair.

There is…not a lot of visible difference between the Ren of now, and the Ren of thirty minutes ago. This Ren, certainly, is less damp than the previous one, and his hair is inches shorter for it now that the weight of the water isn’t dragging it past his shoulders, but he’s still wearing the same undershirt, the same clinging pants. The underwear have still been forgone entirely, and Hux can see both the soft length of his cock, and the curve of his heavy balls behind it. He swallows, takes another sip of his tea.

(If this is Ren flaccid, what in stars is he to expect from Ren hard?)

There’s a lot of space between them. Hux thinks, briefly, that he preferred it when there wasn’t, that he preferred it with his gloved hands on Ren’s hips and Ren’s bare thighs pressed back against his jodhpurs, but he doesn’t really want to further that line of thought this morning, so instead he walks to Ren’s couch, sits down on the side that he’s begun to think of as his.

After a moment, Ren sits on the other side, knees wide. He’s still in bare feet, and Hux lets his eyes wander down there, because he hadn’t seen Ren’s bare feet last night. They’re big, unsurprisingly. Ren paints his damn toenails, which is an odd spot of vanity that Hux had never expected, and is oddly charmed by. There’s no dusting of hair on his feet at all, the skin shockingly smooth, and Hux wonders if he waxes, because most men, in Hux’s experience, have at least a bit of hair on their feet, and Ren’s skin is smooth, smooth, smooth—

“I saw that you had the trooper training statistics?” Ren asks.

“Yes,” Hux replies, taking a moment longer to look at Ren’s feet before pulling his eyes upward. “The numbers are looking better since the modifications I made to the training, so we’re nearly up to where we were before removing reconditioning.”

“That’s _exactly_ what I wanted to bring up,” Ren says excitedly, gesturing with his hand even as the teapot pours a cup of tea for him completely independently of his hand movements. “All those dissenters who thought you’d never be able to recover the numbers, and it’s less than a full year since the change—”

Hux smiles in spite of himself. “It would have been faster if we’d pushed them harder,” he says, conscious that he’d gone easy on them and there was no way that Ren supported that, he’d seen the look on Ren’s face when Hux had proposed the new training schedule in that meeting. Certainly, he hadn’t verbally contradicted Hux, but scowling and marching out had more or less done it for him.

Ren snorts with amusement. “Ah, yes, and break them that way by making sure they know that their Grand Marshal is disappointed in them. You were right to take the tactic that you did, and now you can reap the results. Which are very good.”

Hux looks over, shocked.

Ren offers him a shy grin.

“Thank you,” Hux says, and then he looks down again, because calling Ren by his title seems awfully formal for right now, especially when Ren is hardly dressed, but calling Ren by his name is something that he hasn’t done since—well, since last night, really.

“I got the fleet reports I wanted, by the way,” Ren says. “I forwarded a copy to you already, but I downgraded the importance because I figured we could talk about it now—here, let me bring the numbers up for you, I want to show you what I found.”

* * *

Hux would be lying if he says he’s at his best during the remainder of the meeting. He’s absolutely not—keeps getting distracted by Ren’s bare skin, by memories of the previous night, by the pleasant soreness in his own body, the ache in his lower back that he absolutely wouldn’t remove for any reason. But, oddly, it doesn’t seem to matter—Ren is perfectly happy to chatter on excitedly about little minuscule details in the Sienar-Jaemus reports, small areas he’s found for improvement, and some elaborate diplomatic plan that involves—

“—want to invite them to our _ship_?” Hux blurts. “So they can watch you _fly_?”

Ren pulls back a little, face going pink. “I…just thought that…”

“No,” Hux says, leaning forward and putting his hand on Ren’s arm. “No, I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, I’m just—we’ve never invited anyone other than top brass, and this will throw them for a loop, that’s all. I do actually think the engineers would do better if they knew exactly what your capabilities are, and it’s easier to do that if they’ve seen you.” He makes a face. “I look at the Holonet comments, and we don’t even need the karking Resistance propaganda, the average civilian is convinced that we modify all your footage anyway. Speed it up, digitally enhance it, all that. Letting them see you in real time with their own eyes might encourage them to be better.”

He realizes, belatedly, that his hand is still on Ren’s arm. That it is, in fact, his bare hand, on Ren’s bare arm. That Ren’s skin is warm, and far too smooth, so he must wax, and come to think of it, his arse had been remarkably hairless last night as well, when Hux’d had it spread around his cock—

Ren swallows, audibly. “You…think it’s a good idea?”

“Yes,” Hux says, taking the excuse to pat Ren’s arm and then busy himself with pouring another cup of tea from a teapot that has somehow remained at the perfect temperature the entire time. “I think it’s a wonderful idea, and we should reach out to them as soon as possible, before they’ve committed to another poor design and we get charged for the modifications.” His eye catches on the chrono on the wall, and he sighs.

Ren’s eyes follow his. “Pfassk, sorry, Hux. I didn’t mean to keep you.” His face is still pink.

“It’s fine,” Hux says, drinking his tea back and setting the mug down on the low table. “I keep my own schedule.”

“Right,” Ren says. Then his face goes even more pink. “I have, er.”

“Oh,” Hux says. “Tonight’s requisition?”

(It’s gone beyond pink, at this point—Ren is flat-out _red_.)

Ren summons the flimsi to his hand, passes it to Hux, and—doesn’t quite let go of it. “I was wondering,” he says.

Hux glances at the requisition exactly long enough to see that there are no attachments. No observer request. Nothing to go into the pool.

_Oh_ , he thinks.

_Oh, kark._

This is it—Hux has overstepped for the last time, because he’s cocky, because he didn’t think Ren would actually smack him down for it. It’s the same arrogance that his seniors had always tried to beat out of him, the same arrogance that left him confident that he would succeed, and of course when this is something that he actually wants, when this is something he’s starting to feel like he _needs_ , now is the time that—

“Would you observe me?” Ren says, all in a rush. “Tonight, I would prefer—I would prefer it were you, if you could…watch, and then maybe.”

Hux raises an eyebrow, more to cover the sudden rush of relief than anything else. He hopes his own face isn’t going pink, and equally hopes that if it is, Ren won’t notice.

“…check on me afterwards,” Ren says.

“Certainly,” Hux says. “If that’s what my Supreme Leader wishes.” He softens the formality with a small smile—and is rewarded, in turn, with one from Ren.

* * *

When Hux finally gets to his office, he sits there for a full hour wondering what the fuck he’s just gotten himself into.

* * *

Hux shows up early to the observation room that evening. There’s no reason not to—he’d had a remarkably easy day, for whatever reason. Ren had been absent from any meetings they were supposed to have together, and the stab of disappointment that Hux felt when he’d seen the cancellation notices on his datapad had been ameliorated by the personal (handwritten, even) note that had been on his desk when he’d stopped in for more tea midway through the day.

_My apologies, Grand Marshal_ — _I’ll liaise with you later._

The meetings had gone easier without Ren there, anyway—especially since Hux felt, for once, trusted in his Supreme Leader’s absence.

(Ren is capable of _listening_ , and it still feels like a forbidden piece of knowledge that Hux shouldn’t have, along with the exact location of that one particular mole just in the crack of his arse, visible only when his cheeks were spread around Hux’s cock.)

He brings his datapad, because there’s no reason not to. Reviews the paperwork in advance, while he’s waiting for both Ren and the sex worker to show. Again, there’s nothing particular about the paperwork, because Ren has, again, not particularly engaged in the process. The description of the requirements is copied over exactly from last time, and Hux half-expects the same sex worker to—

—oh, kriff. Except it’s not the same sex worker, now, is it. Because he’s just come into the other room, and Hux can see the resemblance from the moment that the man lifts pale hands to pull down the hood that’s kept him disguised during his passage through the ship. This man, right down to the style of his hair, and the cut of his uniform, is nearly a clone of Hux himself.

Obviously, the uniform is different—he’s wearing a generic dress uniform, such as one might purchase from an upper end costuming shop, if one was trying to pretend that they had a rank that they didn’t actually earn, but didn’t want to get in any actual legal trouble by doing so—but it’s similar enough that even _Ren_ does a double-take when he enters the room, glances at the sex worker, and then glances through the observation panel as though he’s confirming that Hux is still present.

Which he is. It’s an arrogant charade, and an imposition on the part of the sex worker, to assume that just because Ren is requesting someone who fits Hux’s description means that he wants…

…oh.

Hux can endure this just the same as he endures everything else. He’s not going to like it, but—

—but then Ren smiles that small little smile of his, still staring through the observation panel, and he brings his bare hands up to the clasp on his own robe, and flicks something at his neck. The robe falls and puddles at his feet, and Ren is—

—Hux swallows.

And then again.

(His mouth is far too wet for this, and he feels, for a moment, as though he may choke.)

Ren is in—well, Hux isn’t entirely certain there’s a word for the things Ren is wearing right now. Hux is vaguely familiar with the concept of feminine underwear, in that he is aware it exists, and is issued to a number of their soldiers, regardless of gender. He’s relatively certain that the main differences include increased support for breast tissue, and decreased support for external genitalia, which doesn’t align with, well. Anything that Ren is. Displaying. Right now.

Hux swallows, conscious that it’s all he’s been doing since the robe dropped, and also very conscious that Ren must know. There is no way for Ren not to know. And Hux doesn’t even care.

The sex worker is speaking to Ren, and none of the words are making any sense at all to Hux, and they continue not to make sense until Ren actually turns to the man and starts speaking back, and the line of sight between Hux and Ren is broken for an instant and Hux realizes—ah, yes, it wasn’t Basic. It wasn’t Basic they were speaking, it isn’t Basic they are speaking now, and oh, stars, the thin red fabric— _gown_ that Ren is wearing is clinging to every single line of his back, every little place where his muscles curve into other muscles, all lovingly outlined by fabric that is exactly the shade of First Order red that they use in all of their decorating, and it is like Ren is _made_ for him—

And then Ren clambers onto the bed and lies on his back in a nest of pillows, his hair spread out around the pillow and his lips looking swollen already even though the sex worker hasn’t gotten anywhere near them. They’re still conversing in that language that Hux doesn’t understand, but it’s maybe even a little better this way, because it leaves Hux free to ignore the sounds of their voices, and just put his attention into studying Ren, into watching the flex of his arm muscles under the sheer red fabric clinging from his shoulders down to his wrists. The robe is split down the middle, and Hux watches, enraptured, as Ren tilts his head back and the robe flicks itself away from his body, exposing his legs from his hip down the muscular curve of his thigh, down to his knee—and, stars, even his _knee_ is attractive—and then to the elegant lines of his calf, his pointed toes, his bare feet. He bends his knee when the sex worker climbs onto the bed between his legs, closes his eyes when the sex worker reaches into his own underwear and fondles his cock a moment before pulling it out.

(Ren’s cock is covered by black fabric that leaves his hips bare and, apparently, doesn’t impede the sex worker’s fingers in any way as he bends to prep Ren, talking in a low murmur and stroking his own cock to hardness even as he slicks Ren up. Hux’s vision is obscured by Ren’s thigh, but it doesn’t much matter, because he can see the way Ren’s cock starts to rise at the stimulation, pressing against the fabric of his underwear and distorting the lines. Hux drags his gaze up the chiseled lines of Ren’s body, past his ridiculous abs and the flare from his narrow waist out to his broad chest, the fabric of his robe just barely covering him across his shoulders. Ren’s gnawing on his bottom lip again, and it’s going to distort his makeup, probably—but his lips are a dark blue-black, and there’s a barely visible gold line bisecting his chin. When he moves his head, the light catches on his cheekbones, his nose, the lines of his jaw. There is a scattering of gold dust around his eyes, which have been outlined in black, and Hux wants him, desperately.

(He can admit that, now. Watching another man drive his cock into Hux’s Supreme Leader is enough for Hux to be able to admit that he wants to be that person too—that he wants to go into the room afterwards, that he’s looked forward to this all day, thought about how tight Ren felt around his body, and how long it would be until he could replicate that feeling again.)

And, oh, Ren has listened to him. Ren has taken Hux’s words into account and he’s actually _listening_ , he’s breathing heavily and shifting and actually responding when the sex worker moves from fingering him to pressing on a condom and penetrating him, he’s tipping his hips, and whining, and this time—this time, when Ren turns his head and stares at Hux through the observation panel, this time, Hux knows it’s on purpose.

This time, he watches Ren’s lips mouth Hux’s name.

This time, after twenty minutes of hard, consistent fucking, Hux watches Ren’s face twitch and his mouth fall open as he thrusts back against the sex worker and comes, untouched.

He’s maintained eye contact with Hux the entire time, and Hux’s services are no longer needed.

(Hux will _not_ be disappointed that Ren listened. He won’t be.)

* * *

Hux has rehearsed his opening line, his intonation. He wants something that sounds—caring, but not petty. Appreciative of the gift that Ren gave him, without indicating any disappointment that his services presumably won’t be needed this time around, because after all—Ren not coming is still the rule, rather than the exception. There’s no reason to indicate that Ren won’t want him in the future. There’s no need to think it was a generic uniform that pushed Ren over the edge this time.

(The uniform does look cheaper when the sex worker gets dressed back into it when everything is said and done. Like before, Ren lies there, eyes closed, looking for all the world like he’s slipped into meditation. Any mess appears to have been contained by his black underwear, and his dick, though still impressive, has softened back to the state it was in before any of this had started.)

He waits in the observation room until the sex worker has departed, watches Ren breathe for a space of minutes, that massive chest of his rising and falling at a rate that would be entirely too slow for Hux to sustain himself on. (Especially when he’s hard—but that both matters, and doesn’t. It matters because his erection is a response that his body is having and Ren knows about it—and it doesn’t, because it just…doesn’t.)

Hux is very good at controlling his voice, and he knows the value of patience, and timing. He enters slowly into the other room, takes a moment to centre himself. To adjust to the thick scent of sex in the room, to the visceral reaction his body has to being in the same room as Ren.

“You look as though you enjoyed yourself,” Hux says neutrally, and he is proud of the way that his intonation doesn’t waver, his voice doesn’t slip.

Ren tips his head toward Hux, opens his eyes. Takes in everything there is to see with a slow sweep down Hux’s body.

(There is nothing to see. Hux’s hair is done, his uniform is pristine, his hands are clasped behind his back so that Ren cannot see them shake. His disappointment has been tempered. There will be more time. Or there won’t be. It will be as his Supreme Leader requests.)

Ren skates one big hand down his body, grasps behind his right knee, and hikes it up to his chest.

Hux stares at him.

“Please,” Ren says.

Hux approaches the bed. His footsteps seem very loud, suddenly, the click in the heel echoing in the silent room. When he reaches the head of the bed, he stands there for a moment.

(Ren’s eyes have fallen shut again, and he’s turned his head to the direction Hux is facing, lips swollen, dropped ever so slightly open into a pout.)

His gloves are off. He doesn’t remember having taken them off, but his fingers are definitely bare when he crouches down, touches Ren’s temple ever so lightly.

(Ren is covered with a faint sheen of sweat, but it hasn’t smudged any of his makeup, hasn’t ruined his composure.)

“Haven’t you had enough?”

Ren shakes his head, parts his lips. “More,” he says.

“Spoiled.”

Ren just sighs and shifts on the bed again, pulls back his other leg as well, baring his entire arse to—well, to the wall, really, since Hux is not in a position to see it. (As though Hux could have mistaken his meaning.)

“You already finished,” Hux says, voice gentle. “You asked me to come here afterwards and check on you. I am checking.”

“You look,” Ren starts—and then he stops. Swallows.

“Thank you for not elaborating further,” Hux says, standing. He’s disinclined to remove his bare fingers from Ren’s body, so instead, he pulls them down the length of Ren’s torso, feeling the slide of the red fabric under his skin. It feels expensive. It feels like a thing Ren might have had if the Empire hadn’t blown up Alderaan. The robe is clasped in the middle with a gold medallion. A modified First Order insignia, a melding of the original insignia with something else that Hux doesn’t recognize. Hux taps it with his fingernail as he gets onto the bed, runs his fingertips over the grooves. “This isn’t official.”

“Do you like it?” Ren asks.

“I’ll consider it overnight,” Hux replies. He tucks his fingers underneath it, feels along the back of it. It separates into two halves when he finds the latch, and Ren’s robe falls away, baring his chest. “And advise you in tomorrow morning’s meeting.”

Ren’s hips are exposed. The underwear he’s wearing consists, now that Hux can see it clearly, of a black pouch secured around the base of his cock, and a thick strap around each of his powerful thighs. The position he’s holding, with his knees into his chest, exposes everything below the pouch. His hole, lubed and glistening. The mole between the cheeks of his arse. Hux very carefully, very deliberately, places his left hand onto Ren’s thigh, presses it back even tighter to his chest. Brings his right hand to the clasp of his jodhpurs, noticing the way Ren watches him, with a look on his face that Hux believes is fascination. Or desire.

(Maybe it’s desire.)

“Condom,” Hux says calmly, and one appears, suddenly, hovering in the air above Ren’s underwear. That’s fine. Ren can leave it hovering there—Hux doesn’t have need of it quite yet, isn’t fully hard but he’s definitely getting there. He trails his own fingers over his jodhpurs, and then decides Ren doesn’t get to brag about this. He doesn’t get to use his Force banthashit in bed.

Hux reaches for the condom, but it zips out of the way toward Ren’s mouth. Hux is forced to watch Ren’s lips as he bares his teeth, deliberately bites the activator, and then lets the condom hover right in front of his face.

“I’m not coming over there,” Hux says softly.

Ren makes steady eye contact with him, and then slowly rises up from the bed without using his hands, his abs tensing, contracting as he curls forward, his fingers splayed and his hands wide, not touching the condom at all, using the Force to tug it along with him. As his hands get closer to Hux’s body, he twists his wrists so that the palms face toward Hux. “Take your cock out, Grand Marshal.”

Hux can’t quite muster an eye roll. He’s also fully hard. He parts the fly of his jodhpurs, lets them fall halfway down his arse. Tugs his underwear down this time, tucks the elastic under his balls. (He suspects his aren’t as big as Ren’s, but he suspects his cock isn’t as big as Ren’s either, and Ren didn’t seem to mind that part last time.) Watches his bobbing cock as Ren presses the condom forward, sliding it down Hux’s length without touching either Hux’s cock or his hips.

He would mock Ren for showing off, for the easy way that Ren lowers himself back down to the bed by sheer muscle alone, without engaging anything other than his abs. He would mock Ren, except that he’s achingly hard, and Ren is still gazing at him in that half-lidded, not-quite-well-fucked sort of way that he has, and Hux does quite want to fuck him at this point.

“No banthashit,” Hux warns. “I’ll flip you over if you start spouting off.”

“Won’t,” Ren says breathlessly. The bulge between his legs, still covered by his underwear, is starting to swell again.

Hux wants to mock him for that too, but can’t quite get there, because the visual of Ren’s massive cock staring him in the face while he fucks Ren is suddenly better than anything Hux has ever imagined.

It’s nothing at all for Hux to place his bare hands on Ren’s knees, splay his bent legs outward, and shuffle forward on the bed so that his cock is just barely nudging against Ren’s hole.

He can also feel the easy way that Ren’s arse opens for him at the merest nudge forward of the head of his cock, and he does that for a moment or two, just enjoying the give and release of Ren’s arse without doing anything more than just barely pressing him open, and then pulling back to let his arse tighten shut again. After a few moments of this, Ren tries to shuffle down the bed a little closer to Hux, and Hux presses harder on his knees, forcing his legs open wider.

“You got yours already,” he says. “Are you going to let me get mine?”

“I can get mine again,” Ren says, but it’s not sullen or belligerent like Hux expected it to be. It’s…well, it’s a tone of voice that Hux likes, that’s all, because it sounds like Ren is asking a question instead of making a statement, and that’s something that Hux would like to hear more of from him.

(Not professionally, he realizes. Personally, though. Personally, maybe.)

Hux nods toward Ren’s covered cock. “So let me see, then.”

Ren gives him an inquisitive look.

“With a cock that size soft, you can fake whatever you like when you’re covered,” Hux says easily. “I’d like to fuck you—and I’d like to watch your cock while I do it. Is that something you’d be interested in?”

Ren whines.

“Ren?”

A bitten lip, a half-lidded gaze. “Yes.”

He expects Ren to move, but Ren doesn’t move. Ren just lies there, and so Hux slides his bare hand down the smooth expanse of Ren’s thigh, hooks his fingers under the band and pulls it back, lets it snap sharply onto that pale skin, and then pinches the bottom of the pouch between his thumb and finger, reasoning that it’s the least likely place to have been soiled by Ren’s ejaculate from last time. Unless Ren was faking that time too, which is also a possibility.

When he tugs the pouch away from Ren’s genitals, it becomes very obvious that Ren was not faking his earlier orgasm. He’s just as hairless here as he is everywhere else, which isn’t surprising, although it is a rather odd visual. The ejaculate from before has already dried tacky on his skin, is starting to flake in places. It’s hard to tell whether there wasn’t much of it to begin with, or whether it all soaked into the pouch, because Hux doesn’t want to touch the fabric any more than he needs to.

It also becomes obvious that Ren is not faking his second erection, either. Hux can visibly _see_ his cock filling out, and it’s that visual that prompts Hux to drop the pouch and reach to his own cock, steady it as he slowly presses the entire way into Ren, not pausing until his clothed thighs are up against Ren’s bare ones.

“This is better when you’re more naked,” Hux says.

“Right,” Ren agrees, a little breathlessly. He’s squirming a little on the bed, but trying to make it look like he isn’t, which Hux finds irreparably charming.

“Did you like the contractor better today?”

Ren shrugs one shoulder, looks away. “Doesn’t much matter,” he says.

Hux slowly draws back from Ren, and then presses back in, starts setting a slow, steady rhythm. “Why not?”

Ren shakes his head, sighs.

“Go ahead,” Hux says. “Touch yourself if you like.”

Ren gasps out something that sounds almost like Hux’s name, bitten off at the height of the sigh, and then he brings his hands to his chest, tugs at his nipples.

It’s not what Hux had expected—he’d expected Ren’s big hands to go right for his cock—but the visual is better for Hux this way, and he speeds up his pace a little, keeps fucking into Ren. It’s—nicer, this way, to be honest. Nicer to watch Ren’s cock steadily hardening, shifting on his abs every time Hux thrusts into him. Better to watch all the changes in Ren’s body and his face as Hux keeps fucking him, that unexpected flush that goes from his hairline down into his chest. The way his nipples stand out now that he’s been tugging on them, and Hux is reminded, suddenly, of images he’d seen somewhere on the holonet as a young adult, a human male with gold piercings through his nipple that he’d tugged on while a partner had sucked him off, and he thinks of how lovely Ren would look like that, except that Ren would need silver piercings, silver piercings with the First Order insignia dangling from them, tugging his nipples down.

Underneath him, Ren groans, his ass clenching on Hux’s cock. “You’ve got a filthy imagination, Grand Marshal,” he says, voice low.

“You should try fantasizing during sex,” Hux remarks, rutting into Ren a little harder just for the glorious way that Ren twitches underneath him, the way he lets Hux press his thighs apart even wider. Pfassk, he’s glorious like this—warm and flushed and receptive. “It would save you from wearing those poor sex workers out.”

“It’s their job,” Ren mutters.

“And you’re making it extremely difficult on them. Go on, put your feet down on the bed for me.” He taps Ren’s calf, stills his hips until Ren plants his feet on the mattress. “Tilt your hips, and hold there—don’t bother scowling at me. You want to show off your muscles, go ahead.”

At that, Ren cocks his head. “Do you like them?”

“Yes,” Hux says, painfully hard and too close to his own orgasm to bother demurring or being stubborn about it. “It was a rather nice surprise now that you’ve actually opted to get undressed.”

Ren makes another of those odd gasp-sighs, tilts his hips, and groans. Hux is fucking him hard and steady, his own orgasm beginning to approach, and Ren’s cock is still lying there, smearing precome over his abs, bouncing every time Hux fucks into him, and it’s very, very good. Hux can hear his own heartbeat, can feel himself sweat under his clothes, the ache in his back that lingers on the edges of his consciousness. Wonders what this might be like if they keep it up—tomorrow, the day after. What they might feel like in a week, or in a month. In a year. Hux will gladly budget for as many sex workers as Ren wants as long as he gets this afterwards, as long as he gets Ren, pliant and submissive underneath him, as long as he is the one to check on his Supreme Leader, he is the one to make sure that his Supreme Leader is satisfied, he is the one to make sure that Ren has had _enough_ —

“I’m close,” Hux says, and Ren’s hands drop away from his red, swollen nipples down to his cock, one of his hands curling around his balls, and the other stroking the shaft in time with Hux’s sharp thrusts. “Get yourself off first,” Hux says. _I like the way it feels when you orgasm_ , he thinks. _I like the way your arse clenches around my cock. I like the way you fall apart underneath me._

Ren tilts his hips again, shudders as the movement shifts the angle of Hux’s cock inside him. Hux holds back, just a little, just for a moment, because it looks like Ren is going to come any moment now—but when he opens his mouth, it’s not to moan, it’s to speak. “Tell me you wanted it all along.”

“What?”

Ren squeezes his eyes shut, tightens his grip on his cock, jerking himself off furiously. “Me,” he gasps. “Just—lie about it, Hux. Tell me you wanted me. Tell me you wanted me the whole time, please. Just—just lie.”

“I…”

It’s not a lie.

Hux is balls-deep in Ren, and Ren is fisting his own cock, and they’re both sweating and panting with it, and Hux has wanted Ren the whole time, he just hasn’t wanted to admit it out loud. He can give Ren everything he asks for, right now. He can give up all the leverage. He can—

“Yes,” Hux grits out, pressing sharply into Ren and coming all at the same time, his balls pulling up tight to his body and his cock spasming inside Ren’s arse. “Yes, you—fuck, I—yes, I wanted you the whole time.”

Ren is staring at him. His hand has stilled on his cock—not that it matters, because there’s semen splattered all up his stomach onto his chest, and he’s just—he’s just _staring_.

“Are you happy now?” Hux asks breathlessly. “Did you want to call it quits on the whole charade, now that you’ve made me…like this?”

After a silence that lasts an entire cycle, Ren swallows.

“I’d really rather not,” he rasps. He unsticks his hand from his softening cock, gestures to the mess on his torso. “Not when you’re going to fuck me like that, Grand Marshal.”

Hux exhales, tilts his hips and pulls his cock from inside Ren, taps at the release on the condom and watches it roll off and seal itself into an inert mass. Sinks back onto his heels.

He’s not sure what they’ve just done.

But when Ren’s sweaty hand finds his own, Ren’s fingers just barely touching the side of Hux’s hand and that ice-cold relief creeping up his arm into his spine—he thinks he might not mind it at all.

* * *

There’s a medical report on Hux’s desk first thing the following morning. It’s from Ren.

Hux scans his eyes down the list of tests Ren has had done, and the results thereof—all clear.

There’s a handwritten note attached that Ren must have scanned in after the fact. Hux squints at it, tilts his datapad, squints at it again. After a few moments, he concludes that his initial interpretation of the note was likely correct.

_Came up short filling in the requisition this morning—thought maybe you could stop by my quarters, if you have suggestions._

It’s signed with one, single, overly florid letter that Hux is pretty certain is the letter _K._

He chuckles to himself, and then books his own medical appointment, and sets about clearing his schedule so he can go see Ren.

* * *

_Six Weeks Later…_

Hux is humming to himself as he strides along the corridor to Ren’s quarters. It was a long day, for certain, but a productive one—Ren’s idea about inviting the Sienar-Jaemus engineers to the First Order to watch him fly, as silly as it seemed on the surface, had worked out extremely well. It was worth it for the looks on their faces alone—but doubly worth it for the proposal he’d received from the engineers not three minutes ago, long after their workdays were over, but drafted, he suspects, while they were still in transit back to their home base. Ren will be extremely pleased with the proposal. Hux tugs his glove off with his teeth, taps Ren’s access panel, and slips into his rooms the moment the light turns green. He moves stiffly, due to the pain in his back—but anticipation allows him to ignore much of it, and the stims in his jacket pocket will allow him to ignore the rest, if he chooses.

He leaves his gloves on the small table just inside the door, hangs his greatcoat up so that it won’t wrinkle. Makes himself a cup of tea, leaning against Ren’s counter, watching the dim light filtering out from the open door to Ren’s bedchambers. He can hear heavy breathing from the other room, but there’s no particular rush on his part. He may as well let his tea steep, get the leaves out so that it doesn’t go bitter on him. Let Ren wait for it.

Once his tea is perfect, he wraps one hand around the mug, holds his datapad with the other, and walks through the dimness of Ren’s rooms into the bedchamber.

“Grand Marshal,” comes the crisp greeting.

“Xixor,” Hux says in response. “How’s he been tonight?”

“Better,” Xixor says with a sharp grin, his hips still lazily thrusting into Ren, elegant fingers on Ren’s robes, rather than on the bare skin exposed by the deep cuts up the skirt of the robe. He nods toward Ren. “This’ll be his second orgasm, unless…?”

“No,” Hux says, after a short consideration. “Go ahead, no need to stop on my account.” He holds up the datapad. “I have work, anyway.”

Ren makes a discontented noise into the pillow, and Hux glances over at him. His face is pink, hands clenched in the sheets as Xixor fucks him steadily. There’s not much light in the room, but there’s enough to discern a substantial wet spot underneath Ren and, really, that’s all Hux needed to see.

“C’mere,” Ren slurs into the pillow.

Hux glances at Xixor, and then raises an eyebrow at Ren. “Yes, Supreme Leader?”

Ren turns his face to the side so that Hux can finally see his expression—he’s flushed and hazy, with half-lidded eyes and bitten lips, his dark lipstick smeared across his cheek in a way that Hux is quite certain is deliberate, because if the amount Ren spends on cosmetics in a month allows for cosmetics that smear like this, Hux will need to look into a new supplier for him. _You’re in pain_ , he mouths. “Lemme touch you,” he says.

Hux rolls his eyes, but approaches the bed anyway, leans over next to Ren’s ear. “Sentimental,” he says, softly.

Ren chuckles, voice low, his body moving slightly with Xixor’s steady thrusts. “Give me your wrist, Grand Marshal.”

Hux puts his hand down next to Ren’s cheek, is thankful for the dim lights in the room as Ren leans forward, presses his lips to the underside of Hux’s wrist. His touch is accompanied by that odd Force-chill creeping up Hux’s veins, racing down to his back—and, as promised, a lessening of the pain that’s started to gather there. “Not too much,” he warns. “I took something for it earlier.”

Ren nips at his wrist before sighing heavily. “Not necessary.”

“My pain,” Hux says. “My management.” He rubs Ren’s shoulder through the gown anyway, because there’s no reason not to. It’s not like they have anything to hide, here—the non-disclosure agreement the sex workers Ren favours have signed is iron-clad, and nothing can come back to hurt either of them. Here, in Ren’s rooms, they’re as safe as they’ll ever be. He presses his fingertips firmly into Ren’s shoulder, and then tugs fondly at a lock of his hair before going back to the plush chair Ren has dragged in here, sitting down and putting his datapad on his lap.

He could open up the proposal from Sienar-Jaemus. It’s right here, after all, and he’d like to be able to speak intelligently about it later.

But, on the other hand—he could also watch Xixor fuck a second orgasm out of Ren, and with the way Ren’s toes are curling, it doesn’t look like he’s all that far off from it.

Hux reaches for his tea instead of the datapad. “Don’t hurry it along,” he says, casually. “I want to finish my tea, please.”

Xixor nods, shifts his stance slightly. “Of course.”

Ren whines underneath him.

Both men ignore him.

* * *

Hux escorts Xixor out at the end of the night. Reaches forward, tugs the other man’s hood up over his head. “You’re well, then?”

“Of course,” Xixor says. “As always, it’s an honour.”

Hux doesn’t suppress his eye roll. “It’s something,” he allows.

Xixor’s answering grin is mostly hidden by the hood. “The Order pays me well,” he says.

“I’m aware, I sign off on the requisitions.”

Xixor hesitates at the door. “The Supreme Leader mentioned—if I happened to have a proposal for a number of us going independent, cutting a deal directly with the Order…”

“Ah, yes,” Hux says, putting his hand on the other man’s back and gently propelling him toward the door. “Send your proposal directly to me, I’ll ensure you have my contact information. We can discuss it.”

“Thank you,” Xixor says. He tucks his hands into his pockets. “All glory to the Order.”

“All glory to the Order,” Hux repeats.

Hux has already turned and is heading back to the room before the door has even slid shut behind Xixor. Ren is still there, lying on his side, breathing heavily, his features hardly visible in the dim light.

“This won’t do at all,” Hux says. “Lights, increase twenty percent.”

Ren sighs, rolls onto his back, eyes fully closed. The wet spot beside him is significantly more substantial now, and his entire body is flushed, damp with sweat. “Missed you,” he says.

“I’m here now,” Hux says. He tilts his head, looks at Ren a moment. “You’re gorgeous.”

“Mmm,” Ren says vaguely. He twitches his fingers, and Hux looks down to see his tunic undoing itself.

“That’s forward of you, Supreme Leader.”

“Please,” Ren says, eyes still shut. “I can feel your cock twitching from here.”

“Well,” Hux says, shrugging out of his loosened tunic and hauling his undershirt over his head. “Let’s get you sorted out, then.” He approaches the bed, eyes continuously scanning over Ren’s mostly-naked, sex-sated body. “You still don’t have a bootjack here.”

“Keep forgetting,” Ren murmurs. He spreads his legs, unclips his robe from around his waist. His soft cock is lying across his hip, and there’s a wet smear on his stomach where it had rubbed as he’d rolled over. “Close your eyes.”

Hux does, sets his jaw against the faint feeling that the gravity has shifted as Ren levitates him up off the ground, tugs his boots off with the Force, and then sets him back down. Reaches down for his own sock garters, unclips them and peels the socks off, letting Ren remove his jodhpurs and underwear with a flick of his fingers. He thumbs at his cock as he gets onto Ren’s bed, but there’s hardly any need for it—he’s fully hard, and Ren is soaked with lube, tilting his hips upward so that Hux can slide right into him, fully seat himself and then just stay there a moment as they both acclimatize.

Ren’s skin is hot against Hux’s own, his legs still completely smooth as Hux absently runs his fingers up and down them, getting a feel for Ren even though it’s been less than twenty-four hours since the last time they fucked. When Ren is like this, fucked out and sated, Hux is free to take his time, to ramp it up at exactly the pace he feels like, and it’s perfect, really, it’s absolutely—

“Why wouldn’t you do this before?” Ren murmurs.

Hux looks down at him. His eyes are open now, though still half-lidded, and he’s propped himself up on his elbows to peer at Hux as though he actually cares what Hux thinks.

“I told you,” Hux says, a slight edge creeping into his voice. “I didn’t want to—”

“But you did,” Ren says as cold fingers prickle through Hux’s mind. “You told me as much, you said…”

Hux shakes his head, narrows his eyes, and Ren’s Force trickery retreats out of his skull.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Hux takes a deep breath, grinds against Ren, and then starts fucking him at a slow, languid pace. “When you dredged up this paperwork…I was so angry.”

“Why?” Ren slurs. “It was legitimate, there’s so many records in the system, there’s nothing preventing us from—”

“I know,” Hux says softly. “That’s the problem.”

Ren’s hand drags down his own bare chest before curling around his balls, his fingers easing underneath so that Hux can just feel Ren’s fingertips brushing against the place where their bodies meet, as though Ren wants or needs the physical reminder that Hux is bare inside him, that Hux is the only person Ren will allow bare inside him.

“All of this is on file,” Hux continues, the length of his cock dragging against Ren’s fingertips as he slowly pulls out, and then presses back in, his own orgasm a faint thing uncurling and coming to life at the base of his spine. “All your requisitions. The information you put in them. The requests you’ve made. The length of time the contractors have been on the ship. Which conference room you used. The troopers assigned to your detail. Who observed you.”

Ren sighs, arches his back. Drags his other hand down his stomach and curls it around the base of his cock, dragging his fist slowly up the length of it as it hardens.

(It’s the Force, it has to be the Force—Ren is in his thirties, there is no mortal way he’s able to muster a third erection in the space of an hour without some sort of intervention.)

“…whether you’ve been prescribed anything from medical,” Ren says, and Hux winces, because of course Ren has finally put that together, of course Ren has realized the significance of the loose stims in Hux’s drawer, the elaborate routine of self-care, all so that no one knows or can hold against him any of the things that Hux doesn’t wish to be made public.

“I was jealous,” Hux admits. “That you didn’t care who knew what you did in your private time.” He brings his hands to Ren’s knees, presses them aside, and then leans forward, bracing himself on the bed, and fucking Ren chest-to-chest. “That it didn’t matter. That you didn’t feel like you needed to keep this part of your life secret.”

“What’s anybody going to do to me?” Ren asks softly, and he tips his head, parts his lips, closes his eyes.

Hux bites down on his own tongue, refuses to close the gap between them.

Ren curls his legs up around Hux’s waist to haul him in closer, his hard cock prodding into Hux’s stomach, and his hands dancing over Hux’s spine, ice-cold fingers blooming in the spots where Hux is the most tight, where his muscles are threatening to spasm, and it’s a relief that’s nearly orgasmic in and of itself, a relief that drives him to fuck into Ren harder, to reach one of his hands between them and curl his fingers around Ren’s hard, fat cock, to stroke it in time with the way he fucks into Ren’s ass. It’s easy enough to lose himself in this, in the way Ren is pliant beneath him, in the way that this change to their routine is one of the best things that’s ever happened to him, probably the single best thing that’s happened to him ever, and it’s something he can keep private, it’s something he can keep safe, it’s something he can—

“Want my orgasm?” Ren gasps. “’M close, Hux, I’m—”

“Kylo,” Hux breathes, and he leans down, clumsily kisses him right on the mouth, smeared lipstick and all, their teeth clacking together, and the inside of his brain exploding with pleasure as Ren comes underneath him, and Hux is swept up in the waves of his own orgasm, amplified by Ren’s.

When the aftershocks have faded, Hux blinks himself back to awareness, conscious that he’s sprawled naked across his Supreme Leader, and that said Supreme Leader is idling tracing patterns into the clammy skin of Hux’s bare back.

“I wouldn’t make you fill out paperwork,” Ren says. “For any of this…if you think we should make the fraternization paperwork go away, I’ll make it go away.”

Hux doesn’t say anything, just nuzzles into Ren’s chest, and starts idly dragging his fingers through Ren’s hair. There’s some sort of product in it that’s gone slightly tacky with Ren’s exertions. He’ll make sure Ren washes it out before they fall asleep.

“…there’s a purpose to it,” Ren says, those cold fingers dancing inside Hux’s skull again. “Alright, I’ll keep the papers…but…I could make us equals, if you like?”

Hux nearly chokes on his own tongue. “Pardon?”

“Flatten the org chart,” Ren says casually, in that superior tone he gets when he thinks he’s gotten on top of something that he previously had no understanding of. “You’re my second-in-command anyway, I might as well just elevate you up here. We wouldn’t have to file anything, then. We’d be equal rank.”

“I won’t penetrate you for an hour while you lay there like a starfish,” Hux warns. “No matter what changes you make to my rank.”

Ren chuckles, deep in his chest. “You won’t need to,” he says, embracing Hux and pressing his lips against Hux’s temple. “I’ve got sex workers for that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content notes:** Sex workers continue to be hired and paid well; Supreme Leaders continue to get fucked, etc | Hux debates slapping Ren for being stubborn; eventually tells him to shut up | Hux shoves Ren fairly hard while they're fucking; it's implied (accurately) Ren doesn't mind | Hux thinks, briefly, of times people senior to him have attempted to beat arrogance out of him; no detail is given | one of the sex workers is the spitting image of Hux, who has very brief mixed feelings about it | Ren is casually picking thoughts out of Hux throughout |
> 
> And, there it is. The final chapter. (And, yes, that was Ziggy Stardust.)
> 
> Deadsy did the beta and copyedit work for this. Thank you, Deadsy!
> 
> And thank you Star, for the wonderful prompt and letting me play in your sandbox.
> 
> Next on my plate is a Zimmalley chapter fic that runs about 50k and has art by the lovely [Fauxtalian](https://twitter.com/fauxtalian1)!
> 
> If you happen to be a Terror fan, I'm also drafting a joplittle modern AU centered around a kink convention, with a future Fitzier fic to follow.
> 
> I'm mostly on [twitter](https://twitter.com/heyktula), though I do have [dreamwidth](https://ktula.dreamwidth.org/), and [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/ktula).


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